Year in Review

It's hard to take a look back at the year in television when, thanks to the writer's strike, all the big questions (and answers) lay in the year ahead.

Thanks to a gathering of trends – digital video recording, overnight ratings, the rise of basic cable original programming – 2007 marked the moment when television went from seasonal to year-round. The popularity of shows such as TNT's The Closer, AMC's Mad Men and Bravo's Top Chef meant that a lot of viewers' favorite shows were coming to an end just as old-world TV's official fall season was beginning.

Along with the continuing bankability of reality TV – shows such as American Idol and Dancing With the Stars are the only shows reliably capable of commanding monster ratings – the result is a flattening of the walls that once channeled what viewers watched and when they watched it.

1 Black Hole Finale –The final moments of the final Sopranos episode – those onion rings, that Journey song, Meadow's parallel parking, that strange man at the counter – all slipped into a sudden, black silence. Was it brave and brilliant? Was it crazy and confusing? Oh yeah, all that and more. And less.

HBO

James Gandolfini, Edie Falco and Robert Iler in The Sopranos series finale

2 Invasion of the A-Listers –Looking for a sign of television's ascent as the go-to medium for smart, compelling, character-driven storytelling? Just check out all the Oscar-winning/ nominated actresses that TV attracted in 2007 – Glenn Close in FX's Damages, Holly Hunter in TNT's Saving Grace and Sally Field in ABC's Brothers & Sisters.

3 Extremeophile TV –Thanks to our digital wonderland, we may barely step outside anymore. But a new genre of TV programming allowed viewers to make like Chauncey Gardner and watch the wildlife adventures of others, with shows such as Survivorman, Man vs. Wild, Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers.

4 Best reason to buy a new TV –Five years in the making, shot in glorious high-definition, Planet Earth – a co-production of Discovery Channel and BBC – was an 11-part miniseries that took you from the highest mountains to the deepest seas to the driest desert to the dankest swamp. The socio-political backdrop of global warming just heightened the intensity of the experience. In our interactive age, it was the ultimate sit-and-stare experience.

AMC

The cast of AMC's Mad Men

5 Go ahead and call it a comeback –Two shows with great first seasons had shaky starts and seemed destined for SSS (Sophomore Slump Syndrome). NBC's Friday Night Lights veered off into soap-opera histrionics with a far-fetched murder cover-up, and Showtime's Dexter had its serial-killer-with-a-code entering rehab. But both recovered beautifully. Dexter had a great finale that dared to wrap up any and all loose ends, and FNL just continues to get better, richer and deeper.

6 Best new series –Taking a Golden Globes approach, let's split this into two categories. The best new dramatic series was AMC's Mad Men, a smart and stylish period piece – '50s Madison Avenue – from Sopranos writer Matthew Weiner. And the best new comedy series was HBO's Flight of the Conchords, a musical sitcom about two guys from New Zealand living in New York City. If you haven't seen it, do a Google search using the phrase "Binary Solo." Brilliant hilarity will soon follow.

7 Heroes was great (there, I said it) – There was lots of grousing about the second season of last year's break-out phenomenon. It started too slow, there was too much romance, too many new characters, waah-waah. But those criticisms, as is so often the case, seemed to be more about viewer expectation generated by all the hype than reflections of the show, which, week after week, continued to create a new kind of hybrid form of TV entertainment – part soap opera, part comic book, part pop culture myth and all smart fun.

AP

Sanjaya Malakar performs on Fox's American Idol.

8 30 Rock Rocks – Now that Extras is over, NBC's 30 Rock is the smartest/funniest show on television. MVP trophy goes to Alec Baldwin.

9 Marie Meltdown – In a reality show designed to showcase celebrities at their most gracefully/gracelessly goofy, Marie Osmond took Dancing With the Stars to a new level of silly-scary. First, she fainted. And then as the weeks went by and the competition heated up, she became increasingly unhinged. The truth was, she couldn't dance, but that didn't stop her, or her ever-present brother, Donny. What once was cute has curdled into creepy.

10 The Indelible Image of 2007 – Sanjaya and his "ponyhawk." That hair, that voice, what Marie was to Dancing With the Stars, Sanjaya was to American Idol – a contestant who wasn't very good that people kept voting for anyway.

2007 Emmy Awards

Series: The Sopranos

Actor: James Spader (Boston Legal)

Actress: Sally Field (Brothers and Sisters)

Supporting actor: Terry O'Quinn (Lost)

Supporting actress: Katherine Heigl (Grey's Anatomy)

Miniseries: Broken Trail

Movie: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Actor: Robert Duvall (Broken Trail)

Actress: Helen Mirren (Prime Suspect)

Supporting actor: Thomas Haden Church (Broken Trail)

Supporting actress: Judy Davis (The Starter Wife)

Series: 30 Rock

Actor: Ricky Gervais (Extras)

Actress: America Ferrera (Ugly Betty)

Supporting actor: Jeremy Piven (Entourage)

Supporting actress: Jaime Pressly (My Name is Earl)

"Don't stop believin',
hold onto the feelin'"
From Journey's "Don't Stop Believin," the song playing when The Sopranos' final episode cut to black

"Let's face it, if the mothers ruled the world, there would be no ... [expletive] wars in the first place"
Sally Field, in her acceptance speech at the Emmys during which she was bleeped and the camera cut to a giant disco ball

"Let me tell you this. He's not going to win. I won'tbe back if he does."
Simon Cowell, commenting on the Sanjaya phenomenon