Hear that sound?

That's the 2008 TV year circling the drain, leaving nothing but a nasty soap scum ring. There may have been a few high points like the phenomenal summer Olympics, Tina Fey's killer Sarah Palin impression and Mad Men snatching basic cable's first outstanding drama Emmy. There were even several impressive new series, including HBO's True Blood, CBS' The Mentalist and Fox's Fringe. But for the most part this has been a deadly year for television.

And that's saying a lot considering this is an industry that thrives on failure. If shows didn't fail, then what would all those development people do? What would fall be with nothing but returning shows?

Oh, wait. That basically happened this last fall when broadcast networks simply relaunched most of their 2007 freshman shows with dismal results. Viewers are down an average of 9 percent for all broadcast networks except CBS, which came in recently with a 1 percent gain.

CBS, which actually rolled out a lean, but semi-normal fall, had the most success with viewers this year, and two of its new dramas, The Mentalist and Eleventh Hour, have been embraced by viewers.

The year kicked off in the midst of the Writers Guild strike that crippled both the midseason and the fall. Fox's 24 skipped the year -- we don't count the two-hour movie in November as a returning show. Others like Heroes should have stayed on hiatus. One of 2007's most promising new shows, Pushing Daisies, ended up on the slab after ABC opted to do a relaunch that failed to make lift-off. Poor Chuck, which really started cooking this season, suffered a major audience defection in its sophomore year.

The strike was followed by a downturn in the economy that lead to NBC's decision this month to give up the 10 p.m. weekday time slot to Jay Leno in a version of his late-night show. A chat with Leno revealed that even he doesn't know exactly what he's going to do with the show when it debuts later in 2009, which goes along with NBC's over all we-don't-know-what-the-frak-we're-doing programming philosophy.

If you want the top 10 shows of the year, we can rattle them off like everyone else: The Wire, The Shield, Lost, Mad Men, Battlestar Galactica, The Office, Lost, Generation Kill, Breaking Bad, Burn Notice.

Looking back at 2008, here's our take on year with very few highs and a whole lotta lows.

Popping Fresh: Tina Fey has been around for a long time, but between a smokin' 30 Rock season and rocking Saturday Night Live with her Sarah Palin impression, no one was hotter than Fey this year.

True Reality: Nothing could touch two of the best reality shows on this season: The presidential debates and the summer Olympics. Record number of viewers tuned in to both, proving once again that television works best when working without a net.

Best new show: Fringe gives you intrigue, action, wry scripts, Joshua Jackson, Anna Torv and John Noble -- love it. But the best part is how producer J.J. Abrams once again gives us a kick-ass woman as a central character. Better yet, he's given us a father-son dynamic with Peter (Jackson) and Walter (Noble) that delights us every week.

Best new season star: Simon Baker, without a doubt. The Mentalist is a snappy new show, but what drives this engine is Baker as the damaged criminal consultant Patrick Jane.

Strangest plot twist: Grey's Anatomy went even more bat crap crazy this season. Cristina getting skewered by an icicle? Abrupt departure of the lesbian love interest? Izzie getting intimate with her dead boyfriend? We love Jeffrey Dean Morgan, but come on. Now, we suspect the rumor of Izzie having a terminal brain tumor may be correct. Otherwise, this is just too creepy.

Biggest fall: Heroes used to be a show that had to be watched and blogged about immediately. This year has proven just how quickly a TV series can sink when it gets weighed down with too many characters and boggy plots.

Oddest new pilot in the works: As the year wraps up, we look forward to 2009 as new pilots start cropping up. One title in particular caught our eye: Bitches, about some women werewolves. Interesting.

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