Graceful retirement award,
For me, there’s only one real contender for this award (especially since most series these days get axed rather than conclude properly).
Battlestar Galactica
I’d had a bit of a mixed history with Galactica. Seasons 1 and 2 I absolutely adored, however once the New Caprica stuff in season 3 was resolved, I really felt the show started to go off the boil. I found myself increasingly bored by some of the episodes, and felt there was a noticable degree of padding sneaking in (season 2 had had similar issues, although it was here they really got to me). With the first 10 episodes of season 4 I was hopeful things would start moving towards a conclusion, however again I just felt like the show was plodding towards the end and some of the episodes I really didn’t like.
However, the last 10 episodes changed everything. Tighter, and with a focus on the end game, the final Cylon was quickly revealed, and we got a real feeling that everything was coming to a head. However with the finale looming, I found old doubts creeping in to my head again. With so much left to be resolved and answered, would the previous sluggish pace mean a rushed ending?
Nope. Instead Galactica delivered in a way better than I think even the biggest fans were expecting. Dangling questions were addressed, and what had been a grim sometimes depressing show to watch, surprised everyone by having an optimistic, happy ending for the characters. It was a brilliant finale, that cast aside any doubts I had developed about the show and cemented its place as one of the landmark Sci-Fi series others will be compared to for years to come.
The McMillan’s Pasties – now with over 20% real cow, a true lunch treat – award for shameless product placement
Its the award for shameless marketing, and there’s one main contender 
Knight Rider
Its completely understandable, with Ford co-financing the series, but there was always much amusement to be had when excuses were found for KITT to transform into a different Ford vehicle every week. There were a few notable transformations (the classic Mustang), but towards the end of the series, they seemed to try and standardise the transformations more, for example, KITT would generally rely on the same pickup truck mode a lot more rather than turning into a random transit or the like (infact the transformations in general seemed to get cut down, with even the Attack Mode’s appearances dropping off sharply).
Its hard to be too critical of Knight Rider though. Many shows tend to have a specific vehicle supplier, its just that they had a specific mechanism built into the show to show off Ford vehicles that drew more attention to it. I didn’t mind it as much as other viewers seemed to. Once you accepted KITT’s transformation abilities (and lets be honest, the original KITT would do things that required just as much, if not more, suspension of disbelief) I found there was fun to be had watching KITT transform into that pickup.
Guilty pleasure award,
Its a series that was widely panned, was riddled with problems, but despite myself I found myself really enjoying. And I’m going to agree with Pie Man here as well (infact agreeing with Pie Man is a main feature of Part 4).
Bonekickers
It took itself far too seriously, but still there was so much fun to be had watching the intrepid team of archaeologists improbably unearth some irreplaceable historical treasure only to then destroy it utterly (usually involving setting it on fire). Legendary sword Excalibur survives for hundreds of years underwater with not a single sign of decay or rust, but three seconds in the hands of Dr Magwilde and its trashed.
The shows failure in the ratings and critical mauling weren’t really a surprise, but it gave me a good chuckle every week.
Worst treatment of a series.
There’s a lot of crossover for this award with previous awards, so I’ll name:
NBC
I was sorely tempted to have this award target Sarah Connor Chronicals and Virgin 1, but instead I have to really bring up Knight Rider again.
I should prefix this by saying, I think that NBC actually had the right idea for what a Knight Rider series should be. While studio interference is usually portrayed as wrong, I think Gary Scott Thompson’s dark, arc-driven vision for Knight Rider was probably at odds with the fun-loving, Mike and KITT-focused show that it needed to be, at least for the first season to establish itself. There’s no doubt in my mind that the later episodes of the show were much stronger and had a great feeling of confidence.
However, what grates, was the way the support for the show completely fell off. At the beginning, there were lots of trailers and publicity. GST’s episodes start coming in and they’re not what NBC wants, so they demand changes. These changes are implemented, however by the time those episodes come to screen, there’s no longer any publicity at all. No trailers or hype. What’s the point in demanding a show changes direction if you’re not going to give those changes a chance? Given the lack of backing, they’d have been as well to leave GST’s earlier plans alone and just see if the audience would’ve gone for a darker Knight Rider.
There’s the aspect of the show’s non-cancellation as well. As far as I’m aware, they’ve still not officially said “its axed”. They’re doing the old BBC/Doctor Who trick, circa 1987 of just not scheduling a new season, and hoping no one notices that the show’s gone away.
The soon-to-be-released DVD set is apparently quite weak as well. While the episodes are all present and correct with nice transfers, apparently no time has been given at all to special features. We know there’s deleted scenes from the early stuff that was cut. There’s also all those TV trailers. They could be put on. Interviews with the cast and crew would be interesting as well, with documentaries surrounding the original plans for the series, and what might’ve happened in the missing five episodes of season 1, and any potential season 2. Again, it just comes across as a studio that completely gave up on the show. This despite a core audience of 5 million viewers who stuck by it despite opposition from American Idol (or Got Talent, I forget) and other big name cult shows like Lost.
Anyway. That’s the end of the Pie Man Television Awards 2009. Its meant as a bit of fun, although probably turned into a bit of a ranty marathon.
Overall, I felt this was a pretty good year for TV that’s sadly culminated in a lot of those shows not making it back next year. There was a lot of good stuff made in both the US and UK. One show that springs to mind that I never mentioned was the remake of Survivors which I enjoyed greatly, and True Blood’s only just started here but had an intriguing start. Smallville had a great year, launching its 8th season with a new team behind the scenes with confidence, moving the show forward very much towards its “Superman” endgame, and even rising above the loss of Michael Rosenbaum. Lots of good stuff out there, and with new shows coming in next year to replace those that didn’t get a second season, I’ll be intrigued to see what we get next.
