The votes are in for the 13th annual Couch Potato Awards.
Once again the Guide's indefatigable critics waded through the year's programs, searching for gems among the dross and delivering the odd well-aimed kick. The consensus was that it's been a good, not great, year. All the winners were deserving and some were among the best shows of the past decade but in some categories there was not a lot of depth. As in previous years, we asked readers to vote online and those results are included below.
While the winners in many categories were hotly debated, in this category even the shortlist prompted passionate discussion.
In a very good year for the genre (Glee's continued decline aside), there were many honourable mentions: American Horror Story (Eleven) succeeded in the difficult art of delivering horror on TV; Breaking Bad (ABC, Showcase) continued to attract new fans despite its grim subject matter; The Hour (ABC) and This is England '86 (SBS) for fantastic (and diverse) English insight; True Blood (Showcase) for its continued fanged soap opera; and Boardwalk Empire (Showcase) for giving us a weekly dose of Scorsese.
Two mini-series stood out from the pack this year. Showcase's Cloudstreet, a beautiful adaptation of Tim Winton's iconic novel about the relationship between two Australian families over two decades, drew praise from critics for its cast, writing and crisp, gorgeous production values but it was Paper Giants that won the day.
There is a scene in Mildred Pierce (Showcase) where Mildred's daughter, Vega, walks naked across a bedroom beneath her mother's horrified gaze. It is electrifying.
Mildred's innards-twisting shock and her daughter's evil indifference was extraordinary TV. So many things made this series excellent. Kate Winslet, Guy Pearce and Evan Rachel Wood were superb. Director and screenwriter Todd Haynes's decision to deliver every scene from Mildred's perspective meant we followed the story in a real-time series of revelations. It was long, beautifully shot and every minute justified.
Peter Kosminsky's Israel-Palestine drama The Promise (SBS) was also gripping. It took the filmmaker 11 years to make the four-part series and it dazzled via a raw and complex portrait of conflict in the Middle East.
Swinging between two time frames - 2011 in Israel and the years between 1945 and 1948 in the British-controlled Mandate of Palestine - Kosminsky's storytelling was mesmerising.
It was a good year for Australian comedy, even if Angry Boys disappointed many Chris Lilley fans. "It needed an editor," says one judge. "It was like watching a Baz Luhrmann film." But the commendations came thick and fast: for Marieke Hardy's Laid (ABC), which was smart, original and offered a refreshingly female sensibility; for Lawrence Leung's Unbelievable (ABC), in which the comedian refined his geeky schtick; and for Housos (SBS), which some considered the sharpest and funniest series yet from Paul Fenech.
Modern Family (Channel Ten) dragged the Brady paradigm into the 21st century, Come Fly with Me (Channel Nine) showed we haven't lost our love of a good double entendre and Archer (Fox8) proved cartoons are not just for kids.
We were divided over whether it was a good or bad year for local drama but we all agreed on one thing: The Slap was a triumph and represented an emphatic return to form for ABC drama after several lean years.
Christos Tsiolkas's provocative novel of contemporary manners was begging for a television adaptation and Matchbox Pictures rose to the challenge, assembling a superb cast and putting them in the hands of the country's finest television directors. Rather than attempting to cram in every detail from the book, they allowed the episodes to unfold slowly, with great subtlety and power. Performance-wise there wasn't a dud note but Melissa George, Alex Dimitriades and relative newcomer Sophie Lowe deserve special praise.
There has been a tendency for the winner in this category to have screened in the weeks before judging, suggesting recent memory is stronger than long-term memory. And this year's winner is no exception, having screened just days before our meeting.
It is, however, a deserving winner for its gentle strength and persuasiveness in the cause it promotes. Scarlet Road (SBS) is a courageous, sensitive program about a woman who provides sexual services and intimate therapy to the disabled. It is tastefully told, both from her perspective and that of her clients.
Online reaction was favourable but a minority insisted it was prurient, depraved and sordid. This suggests some viewers prefer denial to reality and expect their denial should apply to those deprived of sexual intimacy because of a physical disability. Or perhaps it's simple envy.
Of the 10 series nominated in this category, Go Back to Where You Came From (SBS) was a clear winner with the judges. Among the wider community, it attracted criticism and kudos in equal measure for illuminating the plight of refugees (asylum seekers, illegal arrivals, boat people, queue jumpers and others) who often find they have fled one kind of persecution for another.
The three-part series followed six "ordinary" Australians as they experienced immigrant situations in real time and in real places. Each of the participants had preconceived views on the refugee debate and the conflicting opinions they held probably encapsulated most of the principal issues involved. What ensued was confronting and involving.
Only the most firmly mired outlook could have withstood change - or, at the very least, modification - by being put into other people's shoes. And the transfer of emotion from those involved to those watching transcended the usual barriers of vicariousness. This situation must change and can only change if opinions, based on data, rather than fear, are altered.
There was commendation also for Wide Open Road, On Trial and Life at 5 - all on the ABC.
It was a battle of the Oscar nominees in a category that saw television premieres for some documentaries years after their cinema runs, with 2004's Oscar winner Born into Brothels, 2005 nominee Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and 2009 winner The Cove all in contention. Not that the award winners were the sole candidates, with Babies, The September Issue and WikiSecrets also highly regarded by the panel.
The result was a tie, with one award winner and one popular favourite taking the honours, with a special mention for ABC2's Sunday Best documentary slot, which provided the platform for so much fantastic content.
In a highly competitive category, it was impossible to separate the harrowing yet extraordinary exposition of Japanese dolphin genocide in The Cove and the heart-warming Babies, a silent film that showed, through four infants, just how much more unites than divides humanity.
Like the extraordinary BBC series Inside The Human Body (Nine), which was also cited by the panel, the David Attenborough-narrated Frozen Planet, which focused on life in the Arctic and the Antarctic, seemed to come from nowhere.
There was little advance marketing and when Nine eventually did promote the show, it opted for the very odd choice of Maroon 5's pop song Moves Like Jagger. Still, based on ratings and social-media buzz, most of us eventually found Frozen Planet and word of mouth duly ensured the virtues of this astonishing documentary series became widely known.
In a genre that almost defines itself by what it doesn't do rather than what it does, there are few shows that don't owe some debt to Nine's grand-daddy of the pack, RPA.
Ten's Undercover Boss Australia won some support but lacked the zing to win the day. Ten's Bondi Rescue also earned some chatter at the table, perhaps because of its splendid backdrop and robust narrative. SBS's 35-cameras-on-the-wall series, The Family, was a promising concept let down by its choice of a male-dominated and highly functional family.
Although the likes of Poh's Kitchen (ABC) and the genial Gardening Australia (ABC) were given a cursory mention by our panel, there could be only one winner.
The risk of growing stale is a threat any television format commonly encounters, yet Selling Houses Australia consistently remains pay TV's top-rating non-sports program. One of the show's strong points is, unlike most other property shows, a cheesy backstory is not imperative - it's the house and host Andrew Winter's flamboyant personality that dominate.
When planning this year's series, Winter upped the ante. The result was a theatrical new name (Selling Houses Australia Extreme), a melodramatic set of new promotional ads and a guarantee by Winter to undertake the selling of some very unattractive properties. Each house this season possessed an uncomfortable impediment dramatically altering its sales prospects - a gimmick that worked, with this season arguably the show's strongest.
It was the year Ten flirted with serious current affairs before having second thoughts, leaving George Negus with too much time on his hands and the renamed The Project with too much time to fill. It was the year the ABC's 7.30 gained an extra host but lost two-thirds of its name and a chunk of its audience. It was the year we grew tired of Q&A (ABC), which was hijacked by Twitter and let down by increasingly irrelevant guests. And it was the year Nine's A Current Affair and Seven's Today Tonight continued their race to the bottom.
Those dregs of commercial current affairs, along with splenetic talkback hosts, high-profile controversies here and overseas, and an industry in a state of painful transition, provided a wealth of material for our winner, Media Watch, which had another fine year under the confident command of Jonathan Holmes.
We couldn't see much difference between The Gruen Transfer and its spin-orientated spinoff Gruen Planet. One panellist thought it was a missed opportunity to do something different but the rest of us felt it was just like a longer season of Transfer and there was nothing wrong with that.
One of the panel thought Todd Sampson and Russel Howcroft were a little out of their depth outside advertising but in sourcing their guests from the world of PR, the show unearthed some fine talent, including Stuart "casual Russel" Gregor. Another draw was moving the recording to the day before broadcast, enabling the panel to tackle more topical issues.
Ten's foray into the genre with Can of Worms proved palatable to many panellists and At the Movies got props for successfully tweaking the format of a 25-year-old show.
The consensus was that Talkin' 'bout Your Generation wasn't as funny as in previous years but was still the pick of the bunch. Although regular panellists Amanda Keller, Charlie Pickering and Josh Thomas are entertaining, host Shaun Micallef is the real drawcard. This year, he added pre-recorded sketches to his armoury of wordplay, physical comedy and surreal vaudeville, giving him an excuse to team up with his old sidekicks Francis Greenslade and Kat Stewart. His impersonation of Cesar Romero as the Joker, who finds his plans to capture Batman thwarted by OH&S regulations, was a killer.
Never has the distinction between quality and quantity been so stark as in this overstuffed category. Seventeen programs qualified for attention, yet only a handful survived the most basic assessment.
With MasterChef Australia's increasingly heavy-handed manipulation of the competition, Australia's Next Top Model (Fox8) and Project Runway (Arena) merging into one indistinguishably bland Alex Perry vehicle and Ten's Junior MasterChef and Renovators seeming to have more contestants than viewers, the discard pile was shiny and large.
Seven continued its talent-quest ratings success with Australia's Got Talent and The X Factor but neither broke the mould in the format stakes. With The Block, Nine gambled on stripping of the format nightly across a short series and found a surprise success with a show that grabbed viewers early and held on. The real surprise, however, was Nine's Celebrity Apprentice. It sounded like a recipe for train-wreck TV, leading to a trademark early axing by Nine, but instead gave us bizarrely watchable celebrity mayhem thanks to inspired casting.
Ben Elton had this sewn up until a late run from Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O produced a photo finish.
The royal family may not be everyone's piece of cake but for many of us, gripped by the feverish excitement of an enormous wedding, a secret dress and a smiling commoner who seemed - fingers crossed - in control of her life, it was utter bliss. It was pomp and it made people happy. The only letdown was The Chaser's thwarted attempt to cover it - a royal gagging order that proved the Brits still rule over us.
Who could forget Charlie Sheen's meltdown? "I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available. If you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body." That, along with multiple in-house girlfriends, Tiger Blood, a bizarre one-man touring show and being sacked from Two and a Half Men. Apparently he's better now.
Once again, the contenders for this were many: Kyle Sandilands was everywhere you looked, ditto Deni Hines and as for Julia Gillard, what was she doing at the ARIAs?
There weren't too many people living the high life in TV this year but Seven had cause to pop the champagne corks, winning the year with its biggest margin yet. So, too, Julia Morris, who managed to slay the opposition in the most talked-about show of the year and become Australia's first Celebrity Apprentice.
We agreed Chris Lilley's run of success hit the wall with Angry Boys and that Ben Elton's significant talent was nowhere in evidence in Live from Planet Earth. Kerri-Anne Kennerley and George Negus were given the broom for no good reason while Kyle Sandilands and Matt Newton displayed unseemly behaviour stemming from stupidity, arrogance or both.