Here are my picks for the top five TV shows of the year:

5. Rome - HBO’s excellent period drama about the rise and fall of Julius Caeser. Ostensibly through the point of view of two average Roman army soldiers, the series turns out to be anything but. Still, an enjoyable series nonetheless, though I would have preferred more of the “average Roman” perspective. The climactic battle with Vorenus and Pullo in the arena is the most violent and awesome action sequence I ever saw on television.

4. Lost - Oh Lost. So much potential, so many great moments and ideas, so little direction. Lost has the frustrating distinction of offering great questions, but the lack of answers is incredibly unsatisfying. Usually Lost’s answers just lead to more frustrating questions. Still, the addition of the survivors of the tail section of the plan was a stroke of genius, and the character work is always great. Here’s hoping we get more answers as the series progresses.

3. Veronica Mars - Yeah, I was slow to pick up on this series, too, but the recent DVD release of season one has made me a true believer. Veronica Mars, the daughter of Neptune, CA’s disgraced former sheriff and resident Private Investigator solves crimes and tries to survive high school. Sounds like Nancy Drew, but the show is actually a clever look at class conflict and offers perhaps the best female heroine on television. Buffy was defined by the men in her life, but Veronica is defined by her smarts and her wits. I hope my girls grow up to be just like her.

2. Doctor Who - The world’s longest running scifi show and smartest kids’ show returns after over a decade away and it’s brilliant. Full of excitement, great ideas, humor and heart, Russell T. Davies’ take on Doctor Who is even better than the classic series. Christopher Eccleston established himself as one of the best Doctors’ ever and then he died! Rose manages to be the series most resourceful and feminist companion, while still being a working class London shopgirl. And let’s not even get into David Tennant’s 9th Doctor, whose Christmas day debut is one of my favorite hours of the series ever. Hopefully someday this series will get an American outlet and fans won’t have to resort to quasi-legal outlets to see it.

1. Battlestar Galactica - Ronald Moore took the best elements of Glen Larson’s cheesy Star Wars ripoff and turned it into the smartest, most political and contemporary show on television. The conflict between Adama and Caine over Boomer’s rape may as well be the debate between John McCain and George W. Bush on torture. Almost everything with the show deals with the issues we as a society grapple with — how much executive power should a leader take during wartime, how do you deal with a hidden enemy within your ranks, when does interrogation become torture, and how many of our civil liberties are we willing to sacrifice in the name of “security.” It’s all stuff we read about every day in the paper, and it’s the heart and soul of what Battlestar Galactica is all about.

Beyond that, Galactica is the best written show on television. Every second of screen time is important — there’s not a moment wasted. Each episode is so densely packed with plot, characters and ideas that it’s hard to go back to other shows where nothing happens. Throw in some amazing space combat sequences, compelling and flawed characters, and Bear McCreary’s incredble score (easily the best on televison since Twin Peaks) and you have something truly special. If you haven’t seen it yet, Netflix the DVD’s — I think you’ll find that they’reworth it.

I have to say it — the reviewers and fans must all be insane. Almost everything I’ve heard about Perfect Dark Zero has been refuted by the experience of actually playing it.

• The storyline, often lambasted, is a fun, campy scifi spy story that has been influenced more than a little bit by the television show, “Alias” — look at how Joanna’s dressed, how she has an HQ operative giving her instructions over an ear piece, or how similar her relationship with her father Jack Dark is to Sydney Bristow’s relationship with her father, Jack Bristow. It’s a camp send-up of “Alias.”
• The graphics, which fans have been bashing since day one, look phenomenal on my HDTV set — maybe they don’t translate to standard definition, but I think they look amazing.
• The AI, said to be dumb, seems pretty smart on medium difficulty — it frequently flanks, takes cover, and does all the things Halo’s AI is often praised for.
• The weapons feel great (the assault rifles feel a lot better and are more fun to shoot than Halo 2’s sluggish assault rifle), the impact of the shotgun in particular is very satisfying — even the pistols are fun to shoot.
• The music is exactly what one would expect from a British-developed spy story — and I like the mix of dance music on some levels.
• The online play definitely offers the best multiplayer FPS experience on the 360 currently (although I found the demo of Quake 4 to be slightly better and the matchmaking setup more to my liking, there’s hardly anyone playing that game).

Now, there are some issues with the game:

• You can’t jump — although you can roll, the fact that your feet are glued to the ground is a serious problem; I feel like Joanna is physically handicapped and jumping is standard in all but the most sim-oriented shooters.
• The stealth elements aren’t implemented very well — on the first mission you’re asked to sneak, but unlike Splinter Cell, you’re always spotted, even in shadow.
• The in-game physics find that the death animations for your enemy are a little slow — people taken out by a shotgun blast, for instance, fly backwards, albeit in extremely slow motion.

The only reason I can think of for the incredible amount of negativity directed at a game which is, I think, the XBOX 360’s current HD killer app, is that the lead character is female. The legions of young men who have the XBOX 360 are uncomfortable playing a first person shooter whose protagonist is a woman — they’d much prefer a man’s man like Master Chief or Sam Fisher. But, being that they’re at least partially acclimated to modern times, they don’t want to admit it, so they make up superfluous criticisms of the game’s mechanics. No, this isn’t Halo 2, but it’s still a damn good game.