Breaking Bad (New AMC show)

It's good that despite the WGA situation we still have decent collection of new shows coming out this January. The latest comes from AMC (originally American Movie Classics, but the full name is rarely used these days due to a shift towards a more diverse schedule), who brought us "Mad Men", probably the most critically-acclaimed show of last year.

With "Breaking Bad", AMC may well have established themselves up alongside HBO, NBC and Showtime as one of the leading purveyors of quality original programming. This show was created by writer/producer Vince Gilligan ("The X-Files", "The Lone Gunmen"), and the pilot episode is the best I've seen since "Pushing Daisies" last year.

The story itself is one that's been told many times before; a disillusioned, put-upon man has an epiphany and decides that he's mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore. But rarely is it done quite this well. In the case, the man in question is a high school chemistry teacher played by Bryan Cranston (the dad from Malcolm in the Middle, really superb in this role), who has his epiphany once he is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, and decides to provide for his family, and inject some excitement into his own life, by starting his own meth lab.

It seems to me that there's enough talent on this show to keep up the high quality in further episodes, and I'll be watching with great interest to see how this show develops.

Sarah Connor Chronicles Actually Pretty Good Shocker!

Since the success of Battlestar Galactica, television networks have been trying their darndest to resurrect classic science fiction franchises. Even the Sci Fi Channel humiliated themselves last year with their embarrassingly-bad misguided take on Flash Gordon, while NBC's Bionic Woman failed to work her robo-magic on the critics.

It seems unlikey that the best venture so far would arrive from FOX, but that's the wacky world of television for you. I was expecting The Sarah Connor Chronicles to be awful, but as it turns out it has a surprising amount in common with the films, notably the sharp writing, good characterisation and pulsing action sequences. The series is set inbetween the second and third films, and out of all the trilogy it has the most in common with Terminator 2 : Judgement Day. This is undoubtably a good thing, since that was the best installment.

It is, I'll admit, a complete cash-in, but it's a cash-in made by people who seem to love and truly understand the nature of James Cameron's vision (much more so than Terminator 3). I urge you to take a look at this show.

The Critics List : Best of 2007

I thought I'd just remind you what you're missing out on thanks to the writers strike. This list is compiled from the top ten lists which prominent TV critics put out at the end of every year, and this year there were twenty lists taken into account. Here we go:

1. Mad Men
2. 30 Rock
3. The Sopranos
4. Pushing Daisies
5. Dexter
6. Friday Night Lights
7. Damages
8. Planet Earth
9. House
10. The War
11. Lost
12. The Shield
13. Flight of the Conchords
14. Big Love
15. Ugly Betty
16. Extras
17. Tell Me You Love Me
18. Reaper
19. Rome
20. Burn Notice

This year the shows which critics seemed to pick without exception were Mad Men, 30 Rock and of course the final season of The Sopranos. The first two were a big surprise to me, I haven't even been watching Mad Men and didn't really how insanely popular it was with critics, although I should have known that the brain child of a "Sopranos" writer would be worth watching. I've never been a massive fan of 30 Rock but it seems it's very much won the critics over in its second year. House has also had a popular year, performing almost as well as it did in its first season.

Aside from 30 Rock its also been a good year from brand new comedies, with the brilliant Pushing Daisies up at number four, as well as the clever Flight of the Conchords and the charming Reaper which both sneaked their way onto the list. The only new dramas to make the list were Damages and Tell Me You Love Me, although Californication and Gossip Girl came close. It's also great to see two documentaries, Planet Earth and The War, both make the top ten.

Two of my favourite shows, Dexter and Friday Night Lights, continue to perform extremely well but there are also some notable absences from this list. The Office didn't quite make the top twenty, and bizarrely Battlestar Galactica appeared on hardly any lists. Heroes didn't even get a single vote, which surprised me to be honest. I know it's gone downhill, but you'd expect at least SOMEbody to pick it.

Otherwise it's really nothing too surprising this year ... well done Lost for somehow hanging on there in mid-table, and well done the critics for giving the brilliant UK comedy show Extras a place on their lists.