Sure, there are bad shows on TV, but don't stop believing in the good ones

TV critics often are confronted by people who hate the medium, and are therefore put in the position of defending it, but sometimes the haters speak the truth. Television is full of crap, and we know it. Case in point: The other day I came across a true horror in my mailbox, a preview DVD of ABC's adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" -- starring P. Diddy. Granted, this could be good ... oh please. How could it possibly be?

Yet though the haters often relish pointing out TV's most egregious misfires, every year gives us plenty of reasons to love it, too. Here's a very short list of reasons to keep watching. Could this list be longer? Certainly ... however, it's the end of the year, and there are marathons to enjoy. For what it's worth ...

The "Sopranos" finale on HBO. In the months leading up to the drama's final episode, it seemed everybody had strong opinions about how our time peering into Tony Soprano's world would come to an end. Few of those scenarios were happy; most saw a colorless life or a violent death as the only option. Series creator David Chase opted to please nobody but himself, weaving a thick cloth of tension into a final scene laden with symbolism and portent, accompanied by Journey's "Don't Stop Believin' " pulsing in the background.

AMC's "Mad Men." Winning streaks like Matthew Weiner's are hard to come by in Hollywood. Fresh off of writing for "The Sopranos," he elevated the artistry of television to another level entirely with this series. First "Mad Men" invited us to drink in the atmosphere of the Sterling Cooper ad agency, the toast of 1960 New York and a haven of highballs and high style. Slowly the show peels away the hard veneer of that initial sales pitch, plummeting us into a world in which everyone's wearing a mask, none more convincingly than ad man Don Draper. Draper is a desirable mystery at work, balancing a mistress and an emotionally repressed wife in his personal time, and hiding a secret so unbearable that he had to build an entirely different identity to bury it.

Season two of Showtime's "Dexter." Here's an example of a show that cranked out a brilliant first season and went on to top itself in the second, mainly due to Michael C. Hall's superb (and still underrated) performance as Dexter Morgan. As a serial killer with a code, Hall has created a sociopath with just enough kindness and expertly feigned emotion to fool us into accepting his butchery as a necessary evil. But this season forced us to face and accept him for the monster that he is.

First we empathized with Dexter's fright as his colleagues and the Feds found his underwater graveyard and his nemesis, Sgt. James Doakes (Erik King), picked up his trail. Then we watched as he began to question his identity until at last, in the season finale, we gazed into the mirror with him as the core of his nature was revealed in the face of his "soul mate," Lila. A twisted fire starter who met Dexter in an A.A. meeting and seduced him with her dark side, she proved her love by offing Doakes -- forcing Dexter to revert to the killer within, following her across the sea to put her down.

"Am I evil? Am I good?" Dexter asks in some of the season's finest lines. "I'm done asking those questions. I don't have the answers. Does anyone?"

Cable's creative surge. You've probably noticed that the previous shows mentioned are all on cable. That's no accident -- this was, without a doubt, one of cable's best years. It was the year your subscription to Showtime finally paid off (see the previous listing, and a few reruns of "Weeds," "Californication" and "Brotherhood") and FX brought forth "Damages" and "The Riches" -- oh, yeah, and one of Vic Mackey's more powerfully twisted chapters yet on "The Shield." It was the year seasoned actresses Glenn Close and Holly Hunter of TNT's "Saving Grace" joined the likes of Kyra Sedgwick by proving this corner of the medium was fertile ground for planting the seeds of great performances.

And the treats kept on coming: USA showed us that summer TV could be fun with "Burn Notice." Sci Fi's "Battlestar Galactica" upped the stakes by finally giving us a glimpse of The Promised Land, aka Earth. BBC America imported quality shows with "Torchwood," "Jekyll," "Hotel Babylon" and much more. Even Lifetime scored a hit with "Army Wives."

There's still plenty to praise on network television; NBC's "30 Rock" and ABC's "Ugly Betty" remain two of TV's cleverest series, and they were both given a second turn. "Boston Legal" and CBS's "The Unit" continue to churn out thought-provoking hours of TV. But to those who enjoy thinking about television beyond the latest episodes of "American Idol" or "Dancing With the Stars," a cable connection was this year's must-have item. Second was probably an HDTV, but only to get the most out of those hours of "Planet Earth" -- which aired where? Yep, on cable's Discovery Channel.

"The War" on PBS. Whether the inclusion of interviews with Hispanic and Native American soldiers added to the end of several episodes was enough to make up for their omission from the fabric of this 14 1/2-hour piece is still debatable. Nevertheless, what rich fabric it turned out to be. Burns' ponderous undertaking covered familiar stops on the timeline, and included voice work from a number of notable stars, including Tom Hanks. But it's rare to see a look at the war that so intricately explores its long-ranging effects via three major fronts: Pacific theater, European and American soil.

It's this last front that brought an element of heartbreak, particularly in the story of Babe Ciarlo, who hid the stories of hardship through cheerful letters to his mother. Interviews with his family and a voiceover of Bobby Cannavale brought Babe to life so poignantly that it was impossible not to be moved by the shattering final truth of what happened to this soldier. It is his story, along with the countless testimonials from soldiers and citizens speaking out for the first time about that trying time, that made Burns' latest opus unforgettable.

You can't celebrate the highs without experiencing the lows, however, and here are a few that made us consider renouncing our vows of couch potato-dom.

Seattle's dominance on "American Idol." At long last, Simon Cowell and company made a Northwest stop, and what did we get out of it? Simon called one of our lesser talents a bush baby. Out of those who made the cut, Sanjaya Malakar became synonymous with glossy hair and tone deafness, and Blake Lewis made the final -- only to follow that with a poorly reviewed album. Cowell said in subsequent interviews that auditions wouldn't be held here again anytime soon. For that Seattle should be thankful.

The death of Anna Nicole Smith. Considering the slobbering, endless coverage devoted to the woman's death, you would have thought she was an A-list movie star instead of a spokesmodel for a diet aid. But then, cable news as we know it was born out of the murder of a barely known blonde by her celebrity husband. Thus to the 24-hour news cycle the mysterious death of the slightly more famous ex-stripper-formermodel-gold-digging-widow was the equivalent of an all-youcan-eat steak buffet at Morton's. They would not shut up about it for weeks, which made you wish Smith hadn't died for entirely the wrong reasons.

The "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" bomb scare. Oh, what a few Mooninites can do ... like sending Boston into a frightened frenzy over terrorist threats and ending the career of a top Turner executive. Who thought it was a good idea to put something with flashing lights that only a few people could identify under a major public bridge? Then again, what kind of a world do we live in where people can't have fun with Lite-Brite art of cartoon characters?

The "Grey's Anatomy" F-word drama. Following tabloid reports of Isaiah Washington using a gay epithet to refer to cast mate T.R. Knight on the set, and using it again to refute the story in front of rolling cameras at the Golden Globes, he got the boot from "Grey's" and added kindling to the debate already started by radio host Don Imus' firing. Good news though: He landed at NBC, joining the cast of "Bionic Woman." Which was a huge step up! ... Oh, wait.

The saddest examples of TV's decline: "24" -- not even Jack Bauer could save the bomb that was this season. The first part of "Heroes' " season two. "Entourage." "The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll." "Top Design." And the mascot for all that is wrong with TV: Tila Tequila.