  Denis Leary in Rescue Me.
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The Lost crew went down the hatch, HBO went all naked gladiator on us and suddenly, psychics and waterborne aliens were all the rage in TV world in 2005, along with those perennial usual suspects - cops, criminal profilers and CSIs.
It won't go down in history as the best ever, but as we hit the rewind button on '05, we have to admit, it was a very good year. Our annual hit-and-miss list.
The Best
Lost: Hurley's lucky numbers, Mr. Ecko and Locke's yin-yang relationship, the Others ... this mysterio castaway series is a conspiracy theorist's dream. And the one show we never miss week by week.
Rescue Me: Denis Leary understands tragedy and comedy go hand in hand, serving up the year's most hilarious moments right alongside its most dark and truly disturbing scenes.
The Daily Show: Scrappy anchor Jon Stewart and his shameless band of senior correspondents skewer Bush-league politics nightly but not exclusively - nobody's safe from this fake news show's satirical spitballs.
Deadwood: The wild %$##@*& west drama's second season saw wicked saloon keeper Al Swearengen laid low with a painful affliction in his nether regions, but for all his severed-head-in-a-box insanity, we cheered for Swearengen to prevail over even more villainous enemies - and we got a wedding finale.
The Closer: Southern belle detective Brenda Johnson's (Kyra Sedgwick) corpse-side manner and lack of political savvy rubbed her new L.A. colleagues the wrong way all season, but this sweet-toothed steel magnolia wins the day with solid work and a politely pugnacious attitude. The only series we'd recommend seeing start-to-finish on DVD for its full-circle story arc. Thank yeeew!
Weeds: There's built-in conflict when widowed soccer mom Mary Louise Parker turns suburban pot dealer to make ends meet, but we're more hooked on acerbic pal Celia's (Elizabeth Perkins) gloriously dysfunctional domestic antics.
Corner Gas: Brent Butt and co. sweeten the Can-comedy with endearing cultural touchstones - from curling to Littlest Hobo - and clever dialogue, even when the characters we've come to love do really dumb things.
This is Wonderland: Rumpled lawyers, curmudgeonly judges, glamour-free defendants - this is a courtroom drama-comedy we can get behind.
Invasion: When alien bodysnatchers strike a small town during an opportune hurricane, the local sheriff appears to be the chief villain, but actor William Fichter manages to maintain a sensitive aura of deeply conflicted humanity - even when he's urging a deputy to perform self-mutilation with a chainsaw. And Canuck Kari Matchett shines in her breakout role.
Rome: Well, wasn't that a toga party. Julius Caesar rises to power and falls again, while Rome's patricians play nasty politics amid an orgy of sex and violence. But again, lesser characters - soldier pals Titus and Lucius - gave the story its heart.
Grey's Anatomy: OK, the endless romantic quandaries are getting terminally tired, but Sandra Oh is always watchable.
The Worst
The Michael Jackson Trial: Michael Jackson impersonator Edward Moss played the defendant as straight man in nightly courtroom recreations during Jackson's child molestation trial, but even the cheese factor couldn't make us watch more than once.
Average Joe: The Joes Strike Back: Another batch of deluded geeks faced humiliation when they were forced to compete with a gang of hunky ringers. But then, nobody forced them to participate in this mean-spirited mating show NBC offered as an alternative to sleazy fare The Bachelor.
Fear Factor: Who's afraid to eat live slugs? Who cares?
The Weirdest (And we mean that in a good way)
Nip/Tuck: Foursome anyone? How about using a bolt cutter to amputate a limb? And if she didn't kill her own mother, who did Julia smother in that last episode?
Category 7: The End of the World: Tornado Tommy lived to yippee-yi-yay another day - and romance rocket scientist Shannen Doherty.
Nighty Night: Heinous hairstylist Jill Tyrell (Julia Davis) is the most audacious bad-girl ever. Told her husband has terminal cancer, she did what any self-serving sociopath would do - signed on with a dating service.
Blackpool: Murder, corruption - and Elvis songs! A vicious arcade owner cuckolded by a snoopy detective turned good guy in the end. Viva Las Vegas!
Little Britain: The granny seduction, the only gay in the village, the full-frontal nudity. See a pattern here? Must be something in the British water.
The Guiltiest Pleasures
Medium: Patricia Arquette's Emmy win was just wrong - Glenn Close ruled in The Shield - but we're hooked on her psychic investigator's domestic travails. Thank heaven perfect husband Joe is always on standby to take the kids to school.
Veronica Mars: We weren't sold on teen detective Veronica's debut - she came off as a world-weary 40-year-old - but now that she's dialled back the tough-cookie act to sound more like a precocious 25, we're in.
Beauty and the Geek: Ueber-geek Richard's running battles with arch-nemesis Chuck and his warm relationship with beauty Mindi had us cheering for them right up to the surprise finish.
The Biggest Disappointments
Six Feet Under: The finale? Beautiful. Too bad the perennially bleak Fisher clan's tragic self-obsessions made us wish they'd all dropped dead sooner.
Threshold: Nothing against the show. We were quite taken with Carla Gugino and her motley crew of alien researchers. CBS is the killjoy here. After premiering the show in a must-flee Friday slot, the network moved it to Tuesday, pre-empted it for three weeks, then pulled the plug when nobody tuned in to its comeback. Lame, lame, lame.
Rock Star: INXS: Don't get us wrong - we had low expectations for this talent-search show. We were just disappointed that local rocker Jeremy Kozielec, who made the top-50 cut, didn't appear on the top-15 series.
Desperate Housewives: Hey, we still love the hausfraus, but we realized in summer this show doesn't repeat well. And it doesn't work when the women lead separate lives. More kaffeeklatsches, please.
