TV: A look at the top 10 series of the decade

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Maybe this decade has been the new golden age of television after all.

Certainly it has produced highly intelligent, engaging and compellingly written dramas, shot with a big-screen cinematic style. Character development went deeper, darker and more pronounced.

In fact, the decade has witnessed some of the best programming in the entire history of the medium. HBO's "The Sopranos" rarely had a flawed moment, rivaling most any product playing in movie houses.

The notion that real stars do movies while only hacks land on television no longer applies. Ten years ago, it was unthinkable to consider Glenn Close as the lead of a weekly drama -- on cable, no less. Yet here she is, starring on FX's critically acclaimed hit "Damages."

Also, the networks found summer to be a fertile ground to launch hits. "Survivor," "Dancing with the Stars" and "American Idol" all started out in the summer and were instantly embraced in record numbers.

For every yin there's a yang. Comedy spent most of the decade trying to reinvent itself to the mass audience. And, of course, there was the worst trend to ever curse the small screen -- the so-called "reality" format. Almost as soon as "Survivor" became a hit in 2000, imitators came along to water down the idea, making "reality" as manufactured as any scripted show.

Choosing the best programming of the decade is no small feat. Here, though, are the ones that put their artistic stamps on the past 10 years:

1. "The Sopranos" (HBO). Writer-director-creator David Chase fashioned a New Jersey mob story into a work of art, defying the conventions of continuing dramas and slowing down the pace. James Gandolfini examined the complexities of mob boss Tony Soprano as a tortured soul who couldn't resist his darker tendencies.

2. "Six Feet Under" (HBO). Writer-director Alan Ball followed up his winning "American Beauty" film with this study of a dysfunctional family running a funeral home and pondering the weighty issues of life and death.

3. "Friday Night Lights" (NBC). No other series has ever captured the uniqueness of small-town life quite like this, from the political side of a high-school football team to the coming of age of the players who are revered as rock stars.

4. "Dexter" (Showtime). Based on a series of books, "Dexter" is blessed on two levels -- Michael C. Hall's uncompromising portrayal of a serial killer trying to find his conscience, and plotting that cleverly ropes nail-biting stories together in unexpected manners.

5. "Lost" (ABC). Perhaps the most intelligent, frustrating and intricate drama of all time, "Lost" is an adventure so good that audiences didn't even know the point of it until season four -- and, yet, they couldn't turn away each week.

6. "The Office" (United Kingdom). Ricky Gervais starred, co-created and co-wrote this fascinating character study of an office manager whose quirkiness made for uncomfortable and hilarious situations. The tiny but daily elements of the human condition have never been sketched out quite so well before.

7. "Flight of the Conchords" (HBO). The idea sounds like a train wreck: a comedy about two New Zealand folksingers trying to make it in New York City. The humor was wonderfully dry, and their songs (from rock ballads to electronica) were witty interludes in the comedy ("You're so beautiful you could be a part-time model!").

8. "30 Rock" (NBC). Tina Fey skillfully applied her "Saturday Night Live" sarcasm to this half-hour workplace comedy. She poked the eye of network television -- especially NBC -- and managed to satirize everything from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to "The West Wing" with superb goofiness.

9. "Life On Mars" (United Kingdom). Forget the ABC version. This original suspense drama about a British detective who suddenly wakes up 30 years in the past had it all -- procedural intensity, a moving lone wolf of a lead character who longed to go home but found that his destiny was actually in the past.

10. "Mad Men" (AMC). No other series has quite the flare and captures an era like this 1960s-based drama about the employees of a successful advertising agency caught up in the explosion of a changing pop culture. The series is a study in understated but powerful storytelling.

(E-mail Terry Morrow of The Knoxville News Sentinel in Tennessee at morrow2(at)knews.com.)