Well, 8 ½, unorthodox tele things*, writes TIM WONG – who quite frankly, has had enough of movies for one year.

1. Gilmore Girls
A show supposedly aimed at mothers and their daughters, its ammunition of machine gun, Zeitgeist-piercing dialogue should dispel that gender myth alone. The series, of which I've only ventured into partially via Sunday screenings and midday repeats, similarly heeds no respect for the promiscuity of midriff and teen spirit – if anything reversing the roles, so the mom is the hot brunette, and her kid is the cute, buttoned-down bookworm who actually looks her age (see: The O.C). Although crawling with quaint, self-mocking small townisms and TV world idealisms, it's loaded with enough pop, humour and growing pains to have more in common with Jill Clayburgh in An Unmarried Woman than Sex & the City ever will (so really, it is a girl's show after all). (TV2, returning in 2005)

2. The Late Show With David Letterman
Making fun of George W. Bush is a little passé, and frankly, way too easy. And when you've reduced yourself to comparing his face to a row of monkey headshots, you know the joke is wearing thin. Stubbornly, David Letterman will grind a joke down its bone if he has too, having made an entire career out of mocking people, often for years (Clinton, still). And yet, when the current President bears the brunt, it comes so effortlessly, usually under compact self-titled headings like "Genius" and "Electrifying the Nation's Youth". Ridicule is then matched by self-deprecation; he even once admitted upon the eve of the US election, that if Bush lost, he'd be stumped for comedy. Oprah – 2004's queen of material excess – is Letterman's other pet hate, and following a failed olive branch toward Ms. Winfrey (a "Superbowl of Love" between Dave, Oprah, and Dr. Phil), he promptly reverted back to lambasting her car giveaway, book club and other monstrous creations. This is personified by none other than Pat & Kenny: the greatest deadpan comedy skit in living memory, involving two droll, middle-aged men reciting Oprah transcripts in grouch-like monosyllables. Gold. (Prime, 10:30pm+ weeknights)

3. Northern Exposure
Twin Peaks without the mystery. As much as I love a good David Lynch mindfuck, there's something to be said about small towns that aren't forever warding off evil; where being weird or eccentric is endearing in a completely innocent, how-could-you-even-think-that? kind of way. Exposure's non-hellish charm comes via cataloging an indelible club sandwich of characters, some of whom aren't too far off their own Wrapped in Plastic brand of cult status. And unlike Lynch's ephemeral bunch, the residents of Cicely, Alaska got to breath, roam and mature over six whole seasons. TV1 repeated the entire series earlier this year, and for someone who works mostly from home, it made for the perfect lunch break – a hopelessly romantic hymn to the backwater existence, where size never mattered, where logs were just logs, and where David Chase test drove his hyper-lucid dream sequences before Tony Soprano came along. (TV1, repeats)

4. The Apprentice
You could accuse me of channeling my inner-capitalist here. And to be honest, I am, but only because I came to a realisation earlier this year that there are two types of productive people in this world: those who work for somebody, and those who work for themselves. I tend to fit more into the latter category, and what ever glamorous self-label that registers under, the truth is that it's the more cutthroat, ball-breaking route of the two. In my attempt to negotiate the steep learning curve, textbooks and search engines have proven helpful, but it's the stuff those things can't teach you – aggression, confidence, the nerve to wear a pink tie – that The Apprentice has some unique leverage over. Sure enough, it's laden with the same old Reality TV bullshit, but can at least boast women in power suits – a very corporate substitute for the two-piece bikini, indeed. (TV2, 8:30pm Tuesdays)

5. The Price is Right
An ode to consumerism and American Express, this alarming game show requires that contestants needn't possess a high IQ or good general knowledge, but that they simply function as a human receipt. Despite not boding well for the future of modern society, The Price is Right maintains a brief sense of noble vocation as a true people's contest; lucky audience members get to "come on down", and will range anywhere from a mother-of-three, to an indebt student, to a senior citizen, to an international netballer. It's said that they pump the studio with Nitrous Oxide, because everyone's jolly crazy, with plastered Joker smiles, and enough hugs and kisses to feed the world. The host, Larry Emdur, even flirts continually with sexual harassment, exploiting each opportunity to peck, hold hands, brush up against, and rub the small of every female contestant's back. (Prime, 6pm weeknights)

6. The O.C
Why I even watched this, I'm not entirely sure. Part of me knows it's marinated in the grease of affluent materialism and periodic trend setting (Chuck Taylor's, iPods, suit jackets over pastel Lacoste polo shits) that's 40% responsible for baiting its core demographic of impressionable tweens. The remaining 60% is bolstered by that great American axis of evil: a cast of Clearasil-approved boys and girls appearing as pubescent high school students, who look like they're in their 20's, are, and will disintegrate like Tori Spelling, Luke Perry and every other 90210 discard by the show's end. It's a pure white bred, Californian handjob of a series, fetishising a world of Catilian, big yachts, swank charity fundraisers, and rich people helping the needy. Or hell on earth. (TV2, returning in 2005)

7. Late Night Movies
After-hours television is partial to a number of things: infomercials, evangelism, adult advertising. All the best movies live here too; not because they should, but because they're usually too violent, profane, or the slightest bit askew to rate even a channel flick. Of course, with four years of nocturnal festering and a lifetime of deadlines under my belt, this suited me just fine. No longer a student in 2004, bad habits still died hard, but at least I got to share those late, late nights with Henry Fool and his literary knack; Mark Borchardt and the elusive American Movie; Chris Knox and a vault of Hollywood gold; Laura Palmer and her killer in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (just about the scariest film ever made). Even Mean Streets – a film you don't see all that often – turned up, seemingly content on teaching a whole new generation (or the few who were awake that night) the definition of a mook. (TV1/2/3, 11pm+)

8.5. The Office + The Christmas Specials
In theory, 20 years from now, The Office won't have aged a bit. And it's a testament to that Greatest of corporate innovations – or blights – towards a more progressive, shitbrained society. The uniform hasn't changed, the maze of cubicles remain, and the human interaction, if ever, reeks of the same wall-to-wall claustrophobia that hits you the moment you step from the lift. Actually, I'm sure it's a perfectly decent way to make a living, and as life dictates, it's often the people, not the environment, that ruin it for everybody. David Brent, in particular, seems to have monopolized the entire category of Most Annoying Work Colleague Ever. His omnipresence means the comedy – and it is a comedy – tends to cower occasionally under its own weight of hole-in-the-ground unpleasantness, cocked and ready at arms' length to drill home the awful truth that there will always be guys like these. Which is where The Christmas Specials sleigh on in, dusting David, Gareth, Tim and Dawn with a miracle each we thought would never come. While it's almost maudlin in its festive intoxication, never has a happy ending felt so deserved. (TV1, repeats)

*in no particular order

–Tim Wong

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