Postseason criticism

Network programmers are sort of like the coach/general managers of their teams. They choose their players, they put their players in position and send them out to take on the competition.

And the results light up the Nielsen ratings scoreboard.

If your team wins more than it loses, you get praise, fame and bonuses. If it loses more than it wins, you either start saying things like, "Wait 'til next season" or you get fired.

As for TV critics, well, we usually make like sportswriters in the preseason, prognosticating which shows will be good, which will be bad, which will make the all-star teams and so on.

Then we report the scores and make like Monday-morning quarterbacks, critiquing what went right or wrong.

Just for fun, today I'll Monday-morning quarterback my own performance. What follows is a list of my preseason rankings for the shows that debuted last fall (published Sept. 9, 2005) on the six broadcast networks, along with my postseason analysis as to how the season turned out.

Overall, I'm not too displeased with myself — although I wish some of the shows had performed better in terms of quality, ratings or both.

Of course, this is pretty easy for those of my ilk. If, for example, I had called "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart" a great show and predicted it would be a big hit (which I did not, thank goodness), I'd look pretty stupid. But it wouldn't have cost my employers tens of millions of dollars in lost ad revenue.

Here, then, are the preseason and postseason rankings of those shows, based entirely on quality and the opinion of one person — me. (An asterisk on the postseason list indicates the show was canceled.)

PRESEASON — SCI-FI-FANTASY

1. "Invasion"

2. "Supernatural"

3. "Surface"

4. "Night Stalker"

5. "Ghost Whisperer"

6. "Threshold"

POSTSEASON — SCI-FI-FANTASY

1. "Supernatural"

2. "Invasion" *

3. "Surface" *

4. "Ghost Whisperer"

5. "Threshold" *

6. "Night Stalker" *

My original estimate of "Supernatural" — that it was "pretty entertaining" — was much too faint praise. This turned out to be a really good show.

On the other hand, damning "Night Stalker" by saying it was "not working" wasn't severe enough.

I'll give "Ghost Whisperer" a few points for success, but I'm not backing off words like "tiresome" and "overdose of syrupy schmaltz."

PRESEASON — COMEDY

1. "How I Met Your Mother"

2. "Everybody Hates Chris"

3. "My Name Is Earl"

4. "Kitchen Confidential"

5. "Hot Properties"

6. "Love Inc."

7. "Twins"

8. "Freddie"

9. "The War at Home"

POSTSEASON — COMEDY

1. "My Name Is Earl"

2. "Everybody Hates Chris"

3. "How I Met Your Mother"

4. "Kitchen Confidential" *

5. "Love Inc." *

6. "Twins" *