Culture

'Late Night With Jimmy Fallon': Best TV Show of the Year?

By Kevin Fallon
Saved Stories

TV Guide's weekly "Cheers & Jeers" feature runs down the best and worst moments in the week of TV—a fun micro-level analysis of the season as it progresses (that finds time to acknowledge shows like Human Target as often as it does Mad Men). It's also not afraid to call out critical favorites on hitting a sour note—30 Rock received three "cheers," but also four "jeers" in 2010—making the list a fair barometer of a show's quality over the course of a season.

So what was the year's most "cheered" show? Surprisingly, it's Late Night With Jimmy Fallon: "NBC's deliriously creative cutup led the pack with 8 Cheers, for everything from his Emmys' opening number to his always-killer Friday-night "Thank You Notes."" NBC's long-running The Office received the year's most jeers.

Here's the full list of 2010's best ... and worst:

CHEERS

  1. Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 8 Cheers
  2. Late Show with David Letterman 7 Cheers
  3. Conan O'Brien (The Tonight Show/Conan) 6 Cheers
  4. Justified/Project Runway 5 Cheers
  5. Modern Family/Men of a Certain Age/Rubicon/Breaking Bad/Jimmy Kimmel Live 4 Cheers (tied)
  6. Boardwalk Empire/Terriers/Community/Human Target/Rescue Me/Mad Men/ SNL 3 Cheers (tied)

 JEERS

  1. The Office 4 Jeers
  2. Dancing With the Stars/The Bachelor/Bachelorette/Jersey Shore 3 Jeers (tied)
  3. Hot in Cleveland/Two and a Half Men/Desperate Housewives/Rizzoli & Isles/Louie 2 Jeers (tied)

Read the full story at TV Guide.

Here are the things The Atlantic cheered Fallon about this year:

His Neil Young-inspired duet with Bruce Springsteen to Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair":



His performance as host at this year's Emmy Awards—particularly the rousing Glee-inspired opening: