Television: The Best of 1998 Television

1 LARRY SANDERS FINALE (HBO) When people say a TV show is “brilliant,” what they usually mean is “brilliant–for a TV show.” Yet some series are brilliant by any standard, and The Larry Sanders Show, which ended its six-year run last spring, was one such rarity. Starring Garry Shandling as a talk-show host, Sanders sharply satirized show business and provided a unique celebrity frisson as it toyed with the images of its famous guests. But its humor arose equally from its deeply flawed, densely realized characters. The finale was a peak and included a sequence with Jim Carrey that should become legend.

2 JIMMY SMITS FAREWELL (ABC) NYPD Blue dispatched Detective Bobby Simone in four intensely moving episodes. Smits’ low-key virility and Dennis Franz’s emotionalism played perfectly in the tragic setting, and if you have to die, Kim Delaney is the woman–tender, beautiful–to have at your side.

3 CLINTON’S GRAND JURY TESTIMONY An uncut four-hour videotape, taken by a motionless camera trained on one man talking. Disembodied background voices; absurdist dialogue about the word is–nothing so avant-garde has ever been broadcast before. Free of punditry, it was the highlight of Monica TV.

4 ER (NBC) O.K., maybe the new story line about Carter and his protege is strained, but ER remains compelling week in and week out. It also remains atop the ratings, proving that quality and popularity can go together. As TV fragments, and another fall season comes to grief for the big networks, ER seems like the last universal hit.

5 COLD WAR (CNN) Any commercial network that aired a 24-part documentary on the cold war, no matter how dull, would deserve praise, but cnn created dramatic TV. Mixing rare footage and interviews with figures high and low, the series deftly told its grave story while maintaining scholarly integrity.

6 TELETUBBIES (PBS) The most imaginative children’s show to come along in years, Teletubbies features soft, bouncy creatures in an odd green world and seems like a perfect projection of the toddler sensibility. Its greatest brainstorm: repeating films immediately after showing them, just as a two-year-old wants.

7 SPORTS NIGHT (ABC) Of all the shows that premiered this season, only this one was at all intriguing. Set at a fast-paced cable show, Sports Night is a sort of ER with jokes–the camera work, the dialogue and the conflicts are similar to those of TV dramas, but it offers wry comedy and could lead sitcoms in a welcome new direction.

8 AN EVENING WITH THE RAT PACK (TV Land) This amazing artifact tape captures Sinatra, Martin and Davis in 1965, at the height of their joint fame. With Johnny Carson as emcee, the avatars of cool sing for typical burgher fans. Frank is a bit stiff, but Dean performs with oozing plushness, while Sammy winces at some racial cracks.

9 AMC Although its library is inferior to that of Turner Classic Movies, amc is more fun to watch. Here you see the unfamiliar Jeff Chandler or Virginia Mayo films that are often deliciously bad but can be crudely fascinating and say much about the times in which they were made. All this, and George Clooney’s dad Nick as a host too.

10 THE BABY DANCE (Showtime) Weepy, female-skewing movies almost never get respect, but this one deserves a lot on account of its craft and emotional truth. Stockard Channing’s character contracts to adopt the baby Laura Dern is carrying. They seesaw between distrust and affection, and of course it all ends in tears. In this case, they are fully earned.

AND THE WORST (NBC) Not even those most repelled by the hype surrounding Seinfeld’s finale could have expected that it would be so bad. Unfunny and childishly defensive, it suggested that the show’s creators didn’t understand what was best about it.