The Best Television of 1994

1

O.J. on the Run. On a Friday night in June, two-thirds of the nation’s TV households tuned in to the oddest car chase in TV history: O.J. Simpson’s slow-speed flight along the Los Angeles freeways, ending with his surrender in the driveway of his Brentwood home. The courtroom drama that followed has grown increasingly tedious (anybody know what Judge Ito’s right profile looks like?). But that evening-long episode of The Fugitive, with play-by-play from Barbara Walters, Tom Brokaw and seemingly every local newscaster in Los Angeles, was the daffiest media spectacle of the year.

2

Watergate (Discovery)

Liddy, Magruder, Dean and the rest were back, 20 years older, to tell what they knew and when they knew it. The BBC interviewers elicited candor, several fresh revelations and, in five compelling hours, a definitive account of the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon’s presidency.

3

To Play the King (PBS)

Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson), the Tory party whip who had schemed his way to the prime ministry in House of Cards, returned to battle a reformist King of England (Michael Kitchen) in a sequel that nearly matched the original in savage wit.

4

ER (NBC)

Michael Crichton drew on his experiences as a medical student and ignored the usual formulas of TV drama to reinvent the doctor show for the 1990s — and create the season’s surprise hit. The emergency-room action is better than the sometimes-soapy personal stories, but no hour on TV is more gripping.

5

Fatherland (HBO)

In an alternate world where Hitler has won World War II, an SS officer (Rutger Hauer) and an American reporter (Miranda Richardson) stumble on the Nazis’ terrible secret, in this suspenseful, well-paced adaptation of Robert Harris’ best seller.

6

Baseball (PBS)

Granted it was too sanctimonious and too long, but Ken Burns’ 18-hour paean to the national pastime was a gigantic achievement nonetheless, packed with history, nostalgia and, yes, poetry. Burns (The Civil War) was too much in love with his subject, but could anyone else have got this made, or made it so well?

7

She TV (ABC)

ER showed that quality drama could still make it in prime time; this short- lived summer series showed that quality comedy could not. An hour of satire from a female point of view, the program skewered everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Barbra Streisand, as well as (most refreshingly) the way real men and women miscommunicate.

8

David’s Mother (CBS)

Kirstie Alley played the overprotective mother of an autistic teen-ager (Michael Goorjian) in this surprisingly affecting TV movie. Directed by Robert Allan Ackerman from Bob Randall’s script, the film avoided sentimentality as it told the story of a woman who must learn the difference between love and selfishness.

9

My So-Called Life (ABC)

Teenage angst is all over the dial, from sitcoms to Beverly Hills, 90210, but this series from the creators of thirty-something is the only one that seems to get it right. Claire Danes is super as the introspective 15-year-old who makes us remember what it was like to be, like, a kid.

10

Tales from the Far Side (CBS)

Just after announcing that he was retiring his daily syndicated cartoon, Gary Larson brought his mordant wit to TV for the first time in this weird, wordless animated special. Highlight: a sentimental wolf weeps over home movies. Unearthly and wonderful.

…And The Worst

Madonna. The Material Girl, rapidly running out of material, tried pouty intransigence and four-letter words on David Letterman’s Late Show, an appearance that proved you can turn your head away from a train wreck. By the end of her bleepathon, even the studio audience was hooting her off the stage. She tried to salvage the p.r. disaster by acting like Little Bo Peep on Jay Leno’s show and cooing with Dave at the MTV awards. No sale. Terumi Matthews in Madonna: Innocence Lost was more fun.