By Robert Lloyd

Los Angeles Times

It was a somewhat dispiriting fall to be a TV critic. That is not to say there were no good new shows, or that individual good work was not done on less good shows. “What’s good this season?” people would ask. “‘Terriers’ is good,” I would reply, to which I can now add, “and it’s been canceled.” Or I’d say, “‘Rubicon’ is good.” And that’s gone, too.

Like everything else, TV comes in waves. There are peaks and troughs, periods of renaissance and periods of decadence, of expansion and retraction, of innovation followed by imitation.

This year felt a little decadent to me, more trough than peak.

There is always the danger, when you write about anything repeatedly, to confuse your own exhaustion with that of your subject. But the industry, or certainly that portion of it embodied by the broadcast majors, did seem tired this year. (On cable, things were better.) The Leno-Conan do-si-do was like an emblem of a ship moving any which way but forward; the big-network fall lineup felt papered end-to-end with thin takes on cop, spy and lawyer shows – some of them actual remakes, some brand extensions and at least a few of which looked to have been ordered by lottery. How else to explain “Outlaw,” in which a high-living conservative Supreme Court justice resigns his seat to become a crusading liberal lawyer?

Cops and lawyers are the meat and potatoes of television, of course. (And as such may be well-prepared – “Terriers” and “Rubicon” were mysteries, though they were character studies first.) It is a paradox of big-time show business, in which much money is spent and at stake, to want to invest in sure things even as there are no sure things in show business. By the time one network’s copy of another network’s success hits the air, the world may have moved on. Thus did “No Ordinary Family” lumber into the psychic space vacated by the already weary “Heroes,” and “The Event” – not the first show to crook a finger at the lost viewers of “Lost” – register as something less than an event.

Or perhaps I’m just feeling the effects of one too many reality shows and the negativity they exploit and engender. In 2010, there seemed to be almost a race to the nadir with series such as “Bridalplasty” (brides-to-be compete for plastic surgery), “High Society” (young New York socialites fail to justify their existence), and the extremely sorry “Pretty Wild,” whose otherwise uninteresting star would be arrested (and eventually jailed) as part of the Bling Ring, a turn of events that, as you can guess, did not shut down production. The eight years from “The Osbournes,” an original idea, to “The Hasselhoffs,” a blurry copy of a smudged carbon, do not represent the flowering of a form, only its unchecked growth. I did want to scream at times.

Best of 2010

* “Terriers” (FX, canceled). Long-arc sunshine noir tale in which character development was inextricable from plot, not as common as it sounds, with Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James as low-rent detectives caught up in more sorts of mystery than one.

* “Rubicon” (AMC, canceled). Complicated and slow, like Hitchcock on cough syrup, this beautifully executed conspiracy thriller was not always easy to track but always a delight to inhabit: rich in detail, visual intelligence and character.

* “The Choir” (BBC America). Boyish choirmaster Gareth Malone builds self-esteem and community through group singing. “Glee” comparisons do not begin to do it justice.

* “Treme” and “How to Make It in America” (both HBO). For their convincing depiction of place and milieu and more than usually lifelike dramas, in which characters act as people do. And the New Orleans-set “Treme,” especially, shows classes and colors TV largely ignores.

* “Adventure Time With Finn and Jake” (Cartoon Network). Otherworldly weirdness involving a boy and his stretchable dog. Friends and associates include Princess Bubblegum, Marceline the Vampire Princess and the half-rainbow, half-unicorn Lady Rainicorn.

* “Louis” (FX). An unusually successful translation of personal sensibility into situation comedy.

* “Doctor Who” (BBC America). Meet the new Doc, Matt Smith, the same and yet not the same as the old Doc. Steven Moffat’s reboot of Russell Davies’ reboot of the British sci-fi classic was cool and cerebral yet full of wonder.

* “Justified” (FX). Timothy Olyphant’s old-school charm and chops animate this seriocomic cop show, so lively you forget to notice how little Southern California looks like Kentucky.

* “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” (NBC). This was the year Fallon went from “Him?” to “Hmmmm!,” expanding his hosting duties from the far reaches of post-prime time to the Emmy Awards. Sweetness and heart are not the first qualities you’d think to look for in a late-night host, but Fallon and company light candles against the dark.

* “La Danse” (PBS). Greatest living documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman’s long, languorous, luxurious look at the Paris Opera Ballet.