Worth watching

From where I sit with my remote, it's hard to judge whether the state of television is better or worse as 2010 tumbles to a close. The Jay Leno-Conan O'Brien late-night turf war dominated the early part of the year and shook the foundation of NBC's 30 Rock headquarters. After the Sturm und Drang, Leno was back in the time slot he should never have been forced from, while O'Brien had a mega-buyout and resurfaced on TBS. Very funny. (O'Brien lost almost half of Leno's Tonight Show ratings; Leno has yet to win them back, leaving Conan's bank account the only winner.)

"Reality" series — how real can anyone truly be with cameras dogging their every twitch? — continue to spread like kudzu, and the stupid ones (The Hasselhoffs, Bridalplasty, 16 and Pregnant) just get stupider. America's No. 1 series, American Idol, is losing its Filthy McNasty, Simon Cowell, and never again will be the same. Pompous Piers Morgan is replacing Larry King on CNN. Did America really need Bristol Palin on Dancing With the Stars? Or Sarah Palin's Alaska? And I, for one, am Glee-d out.

On the other hand, the best shows, several of them cited below, are as good or better than ever, and they're abundant. Great actors have been drawn to outstanding TV projects — Al Pacino as Detroit's Jack Kevorkian, Claire Danes as Temple Grandin, and Laura Linney in The Big C, to name a few. Our little factory town has become an epicenter for television production, and while such shows as Detroit 1-8-7 and Hardcore Pawn (whose new season premiered Tuesday night) aren't prompting anybody to start drafting Emmy speeches (yet), they stand up proudly against their competition. And the successful return of such veteran stars as Betty White (Hot in Cleveland), Cloris Leachman (Raising Hope) and Tom Selleck (Blue Bloods) suggests TV is reversing Hollywood's age-old ageism.

2010 just feels too transitional a year to be confined to 10 "best" picks. So in the spirit of the "Big Ten" expanding to 12 teams, here are 10-plus — providing ample reason to get excited about 2011.

Justified (10 p.m. Wednesdays, FX; returns Feb. 9): Detroit's Elmore Leonard wrote Westerns long before becoming one of America's leading crime novelists, and this violent series adapted from one of his short stories combines the best of both. Timothy Olyphant, as steely-eyed U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, brings bite and menace to the crackling, Leonardesque dialogue.

Modern Family (9 p.m. Wednesdays, ABC/Channel 7): Great sitcoms tend to track across decades, and when Everybody Loves Raymond departed in 2005 there was a brief panic waiting for a show to take its place. We needn't have worried: This ensemble family comedy, topped by Ed O'Neill, Emmy winner Eric Stonestreet, gorgeous Sofia Vergara and delightful Rico Rodriguez, is laugh-out-loud funny because it's almost too real.

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