TV's best

San Francisco Chronicle TV critic offers up some thoughts on the best TV shows on the air now. This is his top 10 list of best shows on the air, in order of greatness.

-- "Deadwood"
-- "The Wire"
-- "The Sopranos" (returns next spring)
-- "Arrested Development"
-- "The Shield"
-- "Rescue Me"
-- "Lost"
-- "Desperate Housewives"
-- "24"
-- "MI-5"

If you've been reading this blog at all since its launch several months ago, you know my feelings on Deadwood. But here's what Goodman says too... so you know it's just not me:


Call it Monday mourning. "Deadwood" ended last night and the only thing one can blurt out at a moment like this is all too obvious to anyone who has seen the show:
"You -- suckers! Why only 12 episodes?"

Television's most profane -- and easily one of its most magnificent -- offerings is over, and what a satisfying, orgiastic little run it was. Twelve episodes, three months and thousands upon thousands of f-bombs, or so it seemed. Only "Deadwood" could drag you through the mud of evil men, bad women and offensive language and make you feel glad about paying for the pleasure.

And just now, right in this instant of having the magnitude of this Shakespearean effort wash over us, who's to deny that "Deadwood" is the best show on television, bar none? (If you're keeping track, by the way, that puts three dramas and one comedy from HBO in the top 10 - at least.) Who's prepared to walk away from the table without voting David Milch's astonishing Western the best thing ever? The acting is, across the board, fall-down-on-the-ground great. From Ian McShane's Emmy-deserving turn as Al Swearengen to W. Earl Brown's layered bear of man that is Dan Dority to Paula Malcomson's angry, tart, devoted and dangerous hooker, Trixie. Not just those three -- all of them. Cameo performances on this show have the sheen of magnificence and that's damned hard to do.

Is "Deadwood" the best show on television?
Who knows. You can get weary parsing out that stuff. "Deadwood" -- despite that nagging, beautifully corrupt sense of Shakespeare -- is utterly original, like nothing else on TV. This is a television series playing in its own stratosphere, defined by genius all around it. Number it as you will, just bring it back as soon as possible.