2007 on the tube -- celebrity craziness, striking writers and cable riches

By: ANN ZIVOTKSY - For the North County Times | Wednesday, January 2, 2008 11:54 AM PST ∞

This look back at television during 2007 might be a week behind the retrospectives featured in last week's issue of Preview, but given the

past year in television, it seemed best to let all of 2007 play out before naming the biggest moments.

In no particular order, here are the television events that couldn't be ignored in 2007: Celebrity coverage craziness ---- When Anna Nicole Smith died of an overdose in February, the coverage her death received should have been a warning to us of what was to come during the summer. From network news to CNN to the E! Channel, viewers couldn't escape reports on Smith's life and death, and the trend continued during the summer when Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie went in and out of jail, and Lindsay Lohan went in and out of rehab.

A "View" vendetta ---- Barbara Walters, who co-produces the ABC daytime talk fest "The View," could only dream about the show's

rising ratings when Rosie O'Donnell joined as host in the fall of 2006, but by the beginning of 2007 Walters must have felt like she was caught in a nightmare. First O'Donnell got into a war of words with Donald Trump, and then in May she announced she was leaving the show, only to get into an on-air battle with fellow "View" host Elisabeth Hasselbeck a month later. During the summer O'Donnell said publicly that Walters lied to her. Walters is a television icon; O'Donnell has become a television joke.

Writers won't work ---- As 2007 was nearing an end, television writers went on strike, putting in jeopardy the remainder of the 2007-08 television season and subjecting viewers to an onslaught of reality programs, which don't require writers. While David Letterman, Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien will be returning with new shows this week, many celebrities have vowed not to cross picket lines to appear on the shows. So instead of Katherine Heigl promoting her new movie "27 Dresses" ---- she is among the stars that have refused to appear ---- get ready to see Jack Hanna and his animals. As the strike drags on, producers of the Golden Globes and Oscars are wondering how they're going to put on a show without writers or stars.

The Spears sisters ---- Here's hoping Britney and Jamie Lynn took a long look at their lives in 2007 and have made some resolutions for 2008. Britney was in and out of rehab, shaved her head, and then when she was set to make her "comeback" at the MTV Video Music Awards in September, she couldn't move onstage, badly lip-synced her song and left everyone guessing which substance ---- drugs and/or alcohol ---- she ingested before the performance. Three months later her 16-year-old sister, Jamie Lynn, announced she was pregnant. It's usually never a good thing when teenagers are pregnant, but it's particularly bad when the mother-to-be is watched by millions of young girls on Nickelodeon's "Zoey 101."

All the rest ---- From presidential debates that never seemed to end, to the final episode of "The Sopranos," which seemed to end too soon. ... Three television stars couldn't watch their words and found themselves out of jobs. Don Imus was fired by MSNBC after insulting the Rutgers University women's basketball team, Dog the Bounty Hunter used a racial slur in describing his son's girlfriend,

and Isaiah Washington essentially outed his co-star T.R. Knight as gay and made it worse when he attempted to apologize. ... Summertime and the television is great: "The Closer," "Damages," "Rescue Me, "Mad Men." Who needs the network or new fall shows when cable aired the best television during the dog days of summer. ... Reality television brought us the most untalented singer in Sanjaya Malakar on "American Idol," the most dizziest dancer in Marie Osmond on "Dancing With the Stars," and exemplary local television coverage during the San Diego firestorms.

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Shows not to miss in 2007 were on cable: "The Sopranos," on HBO and "The Tudors" and "Weeds" on Showtime. The third season of "The Closer" (TNT) was its best, and the premiere seasons of "Mad Men" (AMC) and "The Riches" (FX) gave us something to look forward to in the new year. The networks did deliver a handful of couldn't-miss shows, including the brand-new "Life" and the veteran "Law & Order: SVU" on NBC. The "SVU" episode "Paternity," which aired at the end of November, captures what makes the relationships between characters so

special. The normally stoic and macho Detective Elliott Stabler can't help but hug and hold his partner Olivia Benson after she saves Elliott's wife and baby. And while "Lost" (ABC) was a bit lost this past season, it's still one of the most intriguing shows on television. See if you can resist it when it returns in February.

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Merv Griffin was a singer, talk show and game show host, but his lasting influence on television will be the creation of "Wheel of Fortune" and saving "Jeopardy" from cancellation. He is among the notable television deaths during 2007. Tom Snyder led intelligent conversations on late-night television, "Good Morning America" movie critic Joel Siegel steered audiences to the best bets, Bill Fleming described thrilling sports events for decades on ABC, and Don Herbert as "Mr. Wizard" made science a little less scary. They may have started out in movies or onstage, but Yvonne de Carlo ("The Munsters"), Jane Wyman ("Falcon's Crest") and Kitty Carlisle Hart ("To Tell the Truth") all brought a touch of class to television.

Tammy Faye Messner and Jerry Falwell had plenty of critics, but their followers stayed faithful. Both Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly made us laugh on "Match Game" with their bawdy humor, Tom Poston made us laugh with his goofy humor on Bob Newhart's two shows, and Miyoshi Umeki ("The Courtship of Eddie's Father") made us wish she could be our housekeeper. All four of them weren't big stars, but they added so much to all of those shows.

Two other men who made lasting contributions to television left us in 2007. Iwao Takamoto was the character designer who created "Scooby Doo" and taught us about "Scooby snacks." And if Americans are becoming fatter because our television sets are turned on for a third of the day, perhaps Robert Adler has something to do with it. In 1956 he co-created the first remote control, called the

Zenith Space Command.

Ann Zivotsky writes about television for the North County Times. She can be reached at nctimestv@cox.net.