Last week, I gave you my list(s) of the best TV shows of the decade. Today, it's this year's turn, with my list of the best TV shows of 2009. As often happens, I couldn't limit myself to 10 and wound up with a mix of 20 new and returning series. So go over and read, watch the embedded video, etc., and then come back to yell at me for shows that you feel I ranked too high, too low, or not at all.UPDATE: A couple of additional list thoughts:
1)As I predicted at the end of 2008, this was an incredibly strong year in television. This list could have easily expanded to 25 or 30 entries to include other Sepinwall faves like "Burn Notice" or "How I Met Your Mother" or "30 Rock" (or even interesting newbies like "Kings" or "Nurse Jackie") that I didn't like quite as much in '09 as I did the stuff that made the list. And based on the screener deluge that greeted me when I returned to the office yesterday, I have no reason not to have similarly strong feelings about 2010.
2)Don't get too hung up on the order. The top 4 shows are more or less interchangeable in my eyes in terms of the great years they had, and I spent a lot of time shuffling other shows around while trying to figure out how you judge a "Modern Family" against an "In Treatment" or "Lost." In many ways, I think Mo Ryan had the right idea with her list, which she insists on doing in alphabetical order.
3)In case you're curious to see what made some of my previous year-end best-of's, I added a category tag at the bottom of this post that will take you to my lists from 2005 (the year the blog started) to the present. Note that the first few years will feature links to non-existent Star-Ledger columns, as for a long time NJ.com stories disappeared after 14 days.