The drama category is a pretty odd one, after all the majority of the shows I watch are counted as drama, so this category ends up only holding those that don’t fall into another category – covering a massive range from sublime to ridiculous.

On the ridiculous side of the map we have Gossip Girl and Brothers and Sisters, both of which I treat as completely shameless trash TV. The plots border on the ridiculous and the melodrama and cheese are brought in by the lorry load, but they’re both good for a laugh and the occasional sniffle. I’m not sure how well Gossip Girl will deal with moving on to college, it came dangerously close to shark jumping towards the end of the season; while the loss of one of the siblings from Brothers and Sisters should prove an interesting shake-up, and I won’t miss the under-developed character much at all.

Meanwhile on the sublime side we have Mad Men and Friday Night Lights. Both of these shows have short seasons, air off the main networks in the US and get superb critical acclaim; however one of them gets eleven Emmy nominations and the other gets none. I love Mad Men, it’s smart and dark and funny and stylish, doing period drama in a way I’ve not seen US shows do successfully before. However I think Friday Night Lights is a far superior show, which completely blows me away every episode. Every time I recommend this show to someone it takes a little bit of persuading, but they are soon as hooked and amazed as I am. I’m thrilled the series is coming back next year and just wish the awards people would give it some attention.

On the sublime to ridiculous scale Pushing Daisies sits firmly by itself in the batshit crazy section. It pitched its tent in crazy land from the first moments of the pilot and stuck to its territory admirably. I was surprised that something so different and unashamedly quirky and sweet lasted as long as it did. I enjoyed watching each episode, but I can’t say I’ll really miss it that much, I think it may have done all it needed to do.