Last night at 11:59pm, the May sweeps ended, marking the end of the television season. This seasonal model really only pertains to the broadcast networks these days, but nevertheless I thought I'd take a look back at what I watched and enjoyed (or didn't) this year.

"30 Rock"
Not so long ago "30 Rock" was the crown jewel in NBC's Thursday night comedy lineup. Now it's the weakest link. There's been considerable backlash against the show this year. And some backlash against the backlash, though I'm firmly in the backlash camp. But for the fact that Tina Fey is walking around a TV set, one would have no idea that the show is about a sketch comedy series on NBC anymore. Every third week or so the show turned in a comic gem, indicating it was back on track, then promptly fell off the rails again the following week. Jack Donaghy's romantic storyline with guest star Elizabeth Banks provided a lot of great comic banter, until it was weighed down with a trite love triangle that brought cliches (and bad Boston accents) into affairs. Jenna and Tracy, once the source of so much of the show's charms, now repeat the same rote ego gags every week. And poor Kenneth the NBC page. The more the show tries to break him out of his one note role (but what a great note), the less charming the character becomes, though his drunken send-off speech in the season finale more than made up for it. Another ongoing source of irritation is the show's insistence that Liz Lemon is an overweight frump when we're all looking at the same thin, beautiful woman who always seems to be showing a fair amount of cleavage. In the end, "30 Rock" is showing the same arc that SNL had during Fey's tenure as head writer: early brilliance followed by steady decline. But for all my harping, refocusing on the work place and the show within the show would do a fair amount to improve "30 Rock" come fall. C

"Castle"
The lure here is clearly Nathan Fillion as mystery writer Rick Castle. His rapport with Det. Kate Beckett, aided by some great writing, usually overshadows the case-of-the-week, which is often a good thing. Over the course of the show's second season, the non-mystery action shifted further away from Castle's family to play up his sexual tension with Beckett. After a season finale that placed yet more romantic barriers between the pair, the producers clearly want to milk this angle for as long as possible. As long as things stay just as fun next year, I think I'm okay with that. B

"Community"
The great debate among TV fans this year has been which is the best new comedy series, "Modern Family" or "Community." Count me in the "Community" camp. Much has been made about the show's reliance on pop culture references, but unlike "Family Guy," the show doesn't succeed or fail based solely on a viewer's knowledge of the reference. A big reason the show improved as the season progressed was its ability to adapt as writers figured out what worked. In the pilot, the show positioned Joel McHale and Gillian Jacobs as romantic leads with Chevy Chase and Donald Glover as the comedy duo and the rest of the cast filling certain requisite archetypes. The romantic plot faded away as its limitations became apparent (though it returned with mixed results by season's end), while Glover found himself more often paired with Danny Puti than Chase. More importantly, the entire cast member showed itself to be equally adept at verbal and physical comedy, regardless of the archetypes each actor originally represented. This allowed the show to take bold risks,  from a "Goodfellas" spoof about chicken fingers to an all out action movie homage, that allowed "Community" to soar well above the sitcom fray most weeks. A

"Family Guy"
At this point, Seth McFarlane's long-running and oft-canceled series is running on fumes. The flashback gags still generate chuckles, but the show's originality and enthusiasm just isn't there anymore. C-

"Flashforward"
This science fiction series has a lot more in common with "Glee" than you might think. Both had fantastic pilot episodes that suggested a year of greatness to come. Both veered from week to week between quality and "worst show on TV" territory. Both featured miscast actors in lead roles that weighed down what should have been a can't miss story. But where "Glee" does seem to know one or two things about high school, if the FBI setting depicted in "Flashforward" is even remotely accurate, everyone in this country is in a lot of danger. The small(!) group of agents investigating a worldwide blackout contains not one but two double agents, and when our intrepid hero figures out someone is leaking info , he takes away everyone's cell phones but not their guns during the in-house investigation. Guess what happens next. But this kind of high camp could've worked if the show's writers hadn't found more enjoyment in exposition, particularly repetitive exposition, than action. And in the odd moments where the characters do resort to action, odds are they're speaking in exposition the entire time. Yet for all this descriptive dialogue, not one character seems capable of acting like a real human being with real motivations. In their flashforwards, FBI agent Mark Benford and his wife saw themselves separated, a prospect they find horrifying. Yet when his wife suggests the couple move to another city to avoid all the things likely to push them toward a breakup, he refuses. Another character saw herself being murdered in her vision. When the day of the flashforwards arrives, her boyfriend vows to protect her. Yet when they have an argument a short time later, he leaves her behind in a huff, with no consideration whatsoever for her imminent death. The show is still airing its remaining episodes, and for some reason I'm sticking with it to the end, but ABC has already announced it won't be back in the fall. D

"Fringe"
Where it's obvious predecessor "The X-Files" shown brightest in non-mythology, standalone episodes, "Fringe" hits its stride when dealing with its continuous narrative head on. Over the course of two seasons the show has slowly built up the fabric of its parallel universes, with "observers," shape shifters, and temporal anomalies. With each element, however, things shift just enough to keep audiences re-evaluating. This all paid off beautifully in a two-part finale that traveled into the show's alternate universe, revealing the grand villain to be "Walternate," the alternate universe's version of John Noble's half-crazy scientist. This isn't to say the show wasn't firing on all cylinders the rest of the season. It was, with Noble putting on a weekly showcase of charming eccentricity. Sometimes the leaps in logic are hard to swallow, particularly from Walter's uneducated yet somehow versed-in-everything son. But that's a small complaint. With it's intense, revelatory season ending, "Fringe" seems poised to become the closest thing we'll have to a "Lost"-like conversation show next year. B+

"Glee"
From an immensely enjoyable pilot  to grating pandering in just half a season. When it first arrived on the scene, "Glee" had it all: heart, humor and story. Over the course of the season, the show's tone veered randomly , sometimes a biting satire with dark themes, while other times evoking the emotion of an unironic afterschool special. Eventually, the show settled closer to the latter. (One episode actually ended with the entire school in the gymnasium swaying and singing along to Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful.") With the tone decided, the series lost all interest in plot, with each week presenting a new reason why Will and Emma or Finn and Rachel can't be together. Or why Kurt and his father just can't connect. Any progress a "mean" character makes in one episode is conveniently forgotten the following week. Instead, each episode begins at roughly the same narrative point as the last, offering the characters a chance to explore a different theme in that unmoving plot before resetting things yet again so they can tackle the 18th or 19th variation of the same story next week. There's little left of that wonderful pilot other than the music, which now dwarfs every other aspect of the show, no doubt because Fox can sell five or six more songs each week on iTunes. Instead of selecting songs to match the narrative, now it seems the storylines revolve solely around whatever songs the producers thought would sound cool, as evidenced by a musically rich but dramatically cold tribute episode to Madonna. In the end, "Glee" is a quality framework corrupted by its desire for mass adoption. I am, however, giving a lot of thought to revisiting the series to see if I can accept what it became rather than what I thought it would be. Stay tuned. D

"The Good Wife"
I started watching this show in the fall, but after the winter hiatus I never came back. Many critics continue to praise the series, but as an attorney I can't get past the show's ridiculous inaccuracies. From First Amendment arguments in a personal injury case to an appellate proceeding that played out like a trial (complete with witnesses and a judge apologizing to the defendant), there's little about the legal system this show gets right. Laughing at the show's gaffes even became a weekly exercise at the law school where I work (until one by one every participant stopped watching the show). Outside its judicial ignorance, it's little more than a passable drama. And as with every single legal drama to ever air on television, the lead female attorney character is well on her way toward sleeping with her boss, a tired and sexist cliche if ever there was one. C-

"How I Met Your Mother"
Maybe this is just the "Lost" fan in me, but the HIMYM showrunners need to set an end date. In its first three or four seasons, the momentum of Ted's search for the titular wife gave the series an intensity that's now lacking. Shifting away from Ted, this season the show focused more on Robin and Barney's doomed romantic relationship and Marshall and Lily's marriage. Since the show is told from Ted's point of view, it's more of a challenge to invest viewers in these arcs. Rather than rise to the challenge, the writers often resigned themselves to emotional depictions about as deep as a molded plastic kiddie pool. The best example of this is the show's handling of Robin and Barney's breakup. The characters immediately reverted to their pre-relationship personalities, only acknowledging the break up's emotional consequences when the plot called for it. As the show moved away from Ted, his character became uneven, drifting from douchebag to the voice of reason depending on the week. Still, the show is funny, if not quite as funny as it early years. In season six, the producers need to remember the series' title or risk losing more audience engagement. B

"Lost"
Despite a fantastic series finale, this long-awaited season was arguably the series' worst (though far better than the first half of season three). Several weeks were wasted on a temple storyline that went nowhere, representative of a season that didn't have enough story to fill its episode allotment. Still, episodes like "The Substitute," "Happily Ever After," and "The End" will stand among the series' best. The finale divided viewers, but I remain firmly in the "pro" camp on that one. Regardless of the show's quality, this season generated just as much morning after chatter as the others did, which was sometimes more fun than watching the show itself. Thought provoking dramas like "Lost" are rare in episodic television, particularly on the broadcast networks. This show will be missed. B-

"Modern Family"
I'm not going to lie. The first time I watched the pilot episode, I turned it off with about five minutes left. I hated it. Hearing all the positive reviews of friends and critics, I tried it again a couple weeks later and didn't last more than 15 minutes. Finally, early this spring I tried one last time. And it took. At that point I finally fell hard for this show. It's difficult to say what makes this show work other than the fact that it's just funny, every single week. The characters are more richly drawn than on most comedies, with the humor originating in their personalities rather than the other way around. Oh, and it's really funny. A-

"The Office"
It's not that Dunder-Mifflin isn't a funny place anymore. It is. But "The Office" seems to be phoning it in lately. Too often, the funniest moments in an episode are one off sight gags from the supporting cast (Kevin running to his desk when he finds out the IT guy is searching hard drives or Creed fleeing the building when Michael tells him he's a suspect in their murder mystery party) rather than anything from the show's "A" storylines. With Dunder-Mifflin sold to Sabre last year, the show spent this season playing with alternate configurations, like Michael and Jim's stint as co-managers. Past story developments carried real consequence for the characters, but this year's machinations felt like temporary diversions that would never prevent the status quo from returning, a storytelling method that doesn't live up to this show's grand past. Kathy Bates' CEO character never clicked either, with her comings and goings doing little more than interfering with the employees' lives and making audiences squirm with impatience rather than uncomfortable laughter. If next year is the last for "The Office," as it should be if Steve Carrell does leave the show, it will create a big comedy hole on Thursday nights, but the time might be right for an exit. Hopefully the showrunners will know the series' fate long enough in advance to craft a robust and funny conclusion. B-

"Parks & Recreation"
Easily the season's most improved show. After a mediocre launch last spring, "Parks & Recreation" reinvented itself through its depiction of Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope. Initially something of an incompetent who clashed with her co-workers, this year Knope proved herself a dedicated and caring civil servant. Along the way, the entire parks department crew went from angry dysfunction to tight family unit, proving that a show in which everyone genuinely likes one another provides more comic flexibility than one based upon animosity. Ron Swanson provided some of the year's funniest TV moments, from proving himself a master of the woodshop to cackling at the prospect of budget cuts. "Community" may have soared higher at times, but "Parks & Recreation" is now consistently the best comedy on television. A

"Scrubs"
The attempted reboot of the series focusing on a new cast of medical students fell flat, and ABC finally canceled the show. The new cast was uneven, with the writers only able to play up the strengths of standout Michael Mosley late in the 13 episode run. The reboot was also hurt by the show's over-reliance on guest appearances from original cast members, preventing a proper establishment of the new cast. D+

"V"
I lasted five episodes with this one, and only because I heard that the network fired the original showrunner after week four. Once I saw that the new lead writer didn't produce a better show, I cut my losses and left. As bad as the dialogue on "Flashforward" was, at least the characters on that show said things relevant to the plot. Here the words coming out of people's mouths served no purpose at all. ("What can we do? Run?" "We can't run." "Then we'll have to fight." "Oh, we'll fight.) The pilot episode featured a covert meeting of anti-alien rebel recruits in which, without being told why, everyone let a man they'd never met before make an incision in their heads to prove  something or other. Eventually the meeting was raided by aliens who, rather than kill everyone with guns, produced swords for battle, which served little purpose other than to allow our heroes to escape with minor injuries. Also, an alien race with technology advanced enough to place hidden cameras in the fabric of every crew member's jacket apparently isn't smart enough to also place cameras in a hallway leading to its surveillance room, thus allowing a rebel to discover the room without being caught. It went downhill from there. If you think this sounds awesome, you're in luck. ABC is bringing it back next year. Along with "Flashforward," this show takes the cake as a can't miss concept that somehow still missed on every level. F