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THE BEST TV MOMENTS OF 2004
Dec. 31, 2004
The year 2004 fades to black tonight, and during the last week or so you've been inundated with various "10 Best" lists featuring entertainment critics spouting off about the best movies/TV/music/etc. of the last 12 months.
Hey, wait a minute … I'm an entertainment critic! I want to do a "10 Best" list too! But I don't want to regurgitate the same stuff you've no doubt read everywhere else. So while other publications give you the standard list of the year's 10 best TV shows, I've decided to try my hand at something a little trickier.
Below, you'll find a list of 10 TV moments from this year that packed an emotional wallop big enough to make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Qualifying rules were not strict. I didn't limit this list to scripted moments taken from primetime series. If it aired on TV, and it made my jaw drop (in a good way … not in a boy-is-this-finale-of-"The-Apprentice"-unbelievably-awful kind of way), the moment was fair game. So, without further adieu, I present my list of the 10 Best TV Moments of 2004:
1. The reveal of Locke's wheelchair on "Lost." It's hard to pick the best moment from a series that is seemingly a never-ending string of great moments, but I was hooked on ABC's "Lost" the minute it was revealed that the show's resident boar hunter and knife fetishist was paralyzed from the waist down until his plane wrecked on that magical isle. Since then, the show's many mysteries have grown deeper, but seeing Locke in his pre-"Lost" state remains the most shocking.
2. Al swears in "Deadwood"'s new sheriff. The HBO western's first season was blissful the whole way through, but the season finale achieved a whole new level of perfection. Nothing beats ex-lawman Seth Bullock telling saloon owner and town puppet master Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) that he wants to wear the badge. "Do you have the tin?" Swearengen asks. "I do," replies Bullock. When Swearengen retorts, "Produce it," the words brilliantly roll off McShane's lips in a twisted burst of menace and glee.
3. The Red Sox win the World Series. If you're a baseball fan, it didn't matter what team you root for nor which city you live in (with the possible exception of New York) - you cried when the Sox broke their 86-year-long curse. You cried like a baby.
4. Angel and his team wage their final battle. Vampire slayer Buffy Summers was left at the end of her series with evil defeated and a smile on her face. No such luck for her former soul mate Angel, who spent the final moments of his self-titled spinoff charging into a unwinnable battle. Still, by that time, the lovable, undead lug had learned that the fight is what matters, not the outcome. It wasn't hard to hear the happiness in Angel's voice when he turned to his demon-fighting friends and laid out his final battle plan: "Personally, I'd like to slay the dragon."
5. Jack Bauer takes out his arch nemesis Nina on "24." After a slow middle act, Fox's real-time actioner regained its luster when a cold-blooded and fed up Jack (Kiefer Sutherland at his best) emptied his gun into a conniving-till-the-end Nina. From that point through season three's end, the series was breathtaking.
6. Silvio Dante whacks Adriana on "The Sopranos." Another violent death, another "Sopranos" moment that will be hard to forget. Adriana, we'll miss your spunk, your sass, and the way you shouted "Christophah!" with that New-Yawk accent of yours. We always knew that accommodating the FBI in their investigation of Tony Soprano and his family was going to come back to haunt you. We didn't know how powerful it would be when it finally happened.
7. Miranda orders Mr. Big to "go get our girl" on the penultimate "Sex and the City." The last few "Friends" episodes were good, but not as satisfying as the two-part finale of HBO's insanely popular comedy. When Carrie fled New York for Paris to be with her obviously-wrong-for-her lover, it was Miranda who smacked some sense into Chris Noth's Mr. Big and told him what we all wanted to say.
8. Lem burns the Strike Team's money on "The Shield." You just knew when Vic Mackey and his team of crooked cops stole a stash of drug money at the end of season two that it was going to lead to very bad things. Well, it most certainly did, and the highlight of season three came when the soft-spoken Lem realized his team struck a deal with the devil and tried to make things right by tossing as many greenbacks as he could into a blazing furnace.
9. Jon Stewart lays a verbal smackdown on those "Crossfire" dweebs. Stewart was recently named Entertainer of the Year by "Entertainment Weekly," and it's no surprise why. In a crazy election year that had the pundits shouting non-stop for months, it was Stewart's sharp and funny view of America circa 2004 that made us laugh and think the most. Sure, he may have appeared a bit too eager when he told "Crossfire" hosts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson that their show is "hurting America" by engaging in "partisan hackery." But it didn't make it any less true.
10. Phil Mickelson wins The Masters on Easter Sunday. The Red Sox weren't the only perennial losers to finally turn things around in 2004. Golfer Phil Mickelson, after so many second-place finishes, finally won his first major with a beautiful putt on a beautiful spring day. I don't even like watching golf, yet I was glued to the TV that Sunday.
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