There's a whole lot of TV out there. A fair amount is just rehashed old plots, love stories, cheap FX that don't look so great in HD, cheaper reality TV shows that amuse you for all of five seconds, and second rate comedies featuring old stars from the eighties, it's amusing stuff, but it's not stellar TV, nothing to get excited about; but then there are the true screen gems that knock your socks off and you simply cannot get enough of them. These are shows that you love, just love like a second brother. They are shows you go out and get a satellite TV subscription for. Here's a look at some of the best shows of 2009.

In Treatment: This show, starring Gabriel Byrne is now in its second season. Byrne plays a shrink, who is dysfunctional in his own right; he has a thing for one of his patients and seems to totter on the brink of going too far. Each episode features the good Dr. Weston in a session with one of his five patients. You've got a range of characters, played by an extremely adept cast. The show is well executed. It's refreshing, smart and features plain old fashioned good storytelling. As is so often the case, you can only catch this little prime time pearl with a satellite TV subscription, as it airs on HBO.

Breaking Bad: In Breaking Bad (another satellite TV pick, on HBO only) actor Bryan Cranston (the father in Malcom in the Middle) plays Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who is in need of some extra dough for his lung cancer treatment. To spare his family the burden, he decides to take his chemistry skills and put them to real use manufacturing top quality drugs. He teams up with a student whom he flunked and sells the best crystal meth ever, which gets him mixed up with some pretty strange characters. This show is original, it's witty and funny, and it's addicting. You can't not watch once you've started.

Mad Men: This is what happens when you dive way back into the sixties and combine great sartorial sense with the world of advertising. All the critics love this show. It's gotten heaps of praise and affection from all sorts of well meaning smart people. Still it seems that not enough people have caught this AMC gem. Mad Men is an odd creature. There's no action, no black humor, no hijinks, no HD worthy special effects (however, the duds are killer and very worth the HD), and it's set back in the 1960s. It's a sophisticated show with well crafted characters and complex storylines. It's just good TV.

Fringe: Fringe is actually on Fox. It's a show about the paranormal. Weird deaths, a loopy scientist, Pacey from Dawson's Creek and government conspiracies make this show interesting. There's definitely an X-files like vibe here.



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