I’ll stick to the way I did it last year, a very restrictive top ten. I’ve watched 149 separate shows this year … I’m not sure what that means since it’s the first year I’ve kept count. It sounds like a lot, but it sure didn’t feel it, and there’s a bundle of shows I wish I’d had time for but didn’t. Anyhoo, these are my picks, and like I said, 10 is very restrictive – there’s probably at least another 20 I wish I could include here.

The Simpsons / Family Guy / South Park – I don’t normally include them, but this year they’ve really outdone themselves. The Simpsons for doing the 20 year thing so well, not to mention actually being better in the the 3-4 episodes that bookended the movie than the movie itself; Family Guy for a lot of things but it’s the Gene Kelly / Stewie scene that sticks in my mind the most; and South Park, for the Imaginationland trilogy and the extraordinary image of Stan’s dad rising up on that enormous poo LOL.

Doctor Who – for getting over Rose perfectly. For “Blink”. And for just being so bloody brilliant.

Shrink Rap – probably the most obscure one I’ll mention here. I absolutely loved this little series of interviews and I hope Channel 4 haven’t given up on the concept. In short, a psychiatrist took the role of regular chat show interview, participants including Sarah Ferguson, Stephen Fry, Robin Williams and David Blunkett. I think even if the interviews had been terrible I would’ve still been taken by the set-up. But they were, all of them (even the Sharon Osbourne one), unmissable stuff.

Children’s TV on Trial – the best season of programming ever. An hour on every decade since the fifties, and a handful of supplementary docs. So great.

Challenge Anneka – the “Over the Rainbow” album show. It was so corny but it always was. It’s the fact that this one made me forget my modern cynicism about such shows for once. By the time all the children got to singing I really didn’t care how it was brought about. It was just pure goodness and making people happy. I love Anneka.

Paris – Sandrine Voillet’s tour of Paris was way too short in just 3 hour-long episodes, but it was ample substitute for my not going there personally as planned, not to mention giving me a few pointers of places to go when I finally do get there again.

Liverpool Nativity – it wasn’t as good as the Manchester Passion, but it was damn close.

Extras – I try and write what I think about this and my eyes just roll back in my head remembering all the beautiful moments it had. It was just perfect, that’s all that can be said. It wasn’t just the best 90 minutes of TV of the year, it’s something people will be able to look back on like a time capsule that captures at least 5 years of television, and I just know that it was all calculated on Ricky Gervais’ part. Just on the sheer quantity of cultural references it counts as the show of the year. Andy’s epiphany in the BB house and the Truman Show-like ending lifted it way beyond everything else mentioned here. I bawled … bawled, seriously. That makes it good.

Honorable mentions: Hell’s Kitchen, Peep Show, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Fear, Stress and Anger, iCarly, This American Life, Gavin and Stacy, Saxondale, News Knight, Heston Blumenthal, Russell Brand’s Ponderland, The Genius of Photography, The Late Edition, Autopsy: Emergency Room, The Mighty Boosh, The History of Mr. Polly, Kitchen Nightmares and The F Word … see, I told you I could easily come up with another 20 LOL. If anything there’s simply been too much TV this year.

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