Colin Hogg: My 2014 television hits and misses

The Great Food Race.

Lynda and Jools were the exception to a serving of dire drama and some ‘terrifically bad’ reality shows.

Thank God it's over, is about all I can say. And I'm talking strictly about the television, of course.

Not the rest of 2014, which has been filled with assorted political madness - and Lorde and then the Hobbit again.

Anyway, looking back on my critical 2014, I started the year as I'd ended the previous one - picking on Seven Sharp like an ugly awful spot that won't go away. And of course it hasn't gone away and I suppose it won't now.

There was nothing more I could do. I had to move on. There were other things on TV to get irritated about. Often they involved food or eager young couples building houses.

These shows were usually competitions and shot with the sort of slickness that suggests TV ads, which of course they also, largely, are.

Some were terrifically bad. The Great Food Race, for instance, was a hash of a thing, part cooking, part race. It never made any sense. One of its celebrity judges had a moustache big enough to see from behind.

It popped up on TV3 back in February on a suicide mission, going head on in primetime on Sundays with TV One's MasterChef. Beside The Great Food Race, MasterChef seemed a dignified, intelligent thing.

On the subject of dignity and intelligence, The Paul Henry Show had a bit more of both than I expected when it launched on TV3.

But my top show this year was TV One's Topp Country, in which our most famous twins, Lynda and Jools Topp, cooked up a series that was a bit country, a bit foodie and also musical and funny and, dare I say it, heartwarming. Quite remarkable.

Also remarkable was Erebus: Operation Overdue, a feature-length docudrama on Prime that looked at the infamous crash through the eyes of the police team sent to Antarctica to pick up the pieces. Heartbreaking.

Less remarkable among local TV dramas, though still brave and crazy, was Prime's War News, which presented World War I CNN-style. In one mad scene the reporter in Gallipoli was filmed running alongside our attacking troops in his big fawn overcoat and perfect hair, doing a piece to camera.

A drama I was rude about was Brokenwood Mysteries, a dull detective series with an unlovable hero and a lot of clunky dialogue. A second series is on the way.

Again, there's nothing that can be done.