Year in review: TV season went from 'Good' to better

From broadcast to cable to new streaming options, it was a very busy and very good TV year, at least at the top. USA Today's Robert Bianco chooses the best of 2014

Drama series: The Good Wife (CBS)
This frequently shocking, always entertaining and bracingly intelligent series proves that quality dramas can still thrive on broadcast television — and that, in the right hands, sex, soap, politics, law and family troubles can not just mix, but can combine into something totally terrific and new.

Comedy series: Transparent (Amazon)
Sparked by a transcendent performance by Jeffrey Tambor, this intricately observed, multilayered family comedy instantly pushed Amazon to the forefront of digital services. By beautifully telling the story of one man's attempt to come to grips with who he really is, it spoke to everyone who has ever asked themselves any form of that question.

Miniseries: Fargo (FX)
Admit it: When you heard they were doing a miniseries based on the movie Fargo, you thought, "Well, that's a terrible idea." Happily, instead of a pale copy, what Noah Hawley gave us was one of the most thoroughly original and flat-out fun programs of the year. Powered by a great cast led by Martin Freeman, Billy Bob Thornton and Allison Tolman, Fargo was idiosyncratic perfection.

Movie: Olive Kitteridge (HBO)
This quietly captivating film about a seldom quiet woman wasn't just the best movie of the year — it was the best movie or miniseries HBO has produced since 2010's Temple Grandin. Sensitively directed by Lisa Cholodenko and ingeniously constructed by Jane Anderson from Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer-prize winning short stories Olive was one of the rare TV projects that was exactly as long as it should have been, without a moment wasted or another moment needed.

Special program: The Roosevelts (PBS)
For 14 hours, Ken Burns used this great American political dynasty to once again tell us the story of ourselves, something he regularly does better than any TV historian ever has. Match a great filmmaker with a great subject — in this case three incredibly complex, endlessly fascinating people — and if fate and talents allow, you get a film as good at The Roosevelts.

Ten more to prize

1) The Americans (FX)
2) Masters of Sex (Showtime)
3) Mozart in the Jungle (Amazon)
4) Modern Family (ABC)
5) Louie (FX)
6) Jane the Virgin (CW)
7) Silicon Valley (HBO)
8) True Detective (HBO)
9) Black-ish (ABC)
10) The Flash (CW)

Performances of the year

Comedy: Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent
In a career-transforming role that could have been played for cheap laughs, Tambor gave us nothing but truth, allowing us to see the woman trapped inside his character's body. We always knew Tambor was gifted. We just didn't know how much he could do with those gifts when given the chance.

Drama: Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife
Week after week, Margulies' performance is a marvel of restraint that is equally marvelous on those rare occasions when the restraining walls crumble. Playing a good wife and woman who is loving, ambitious and flawed, she reminds us that it's possible to grab viewers' attention without screaming, and that broadcast viewers will embrace complexity when it's presented in the right package.

Movie: Frances McDormand, Olive Kitteridge
Do you want to know why McDormand is considered one of the great actors of our age? Watch Olive Kitteridge. It is, quite simply, a performance for the ages.

Miniseries: Martin Freeman, Fargo
Brilliance abounded in Fargo, from Billy Bob Thornton's gleefully malevolent sprite to Allison Tolman's doggedly persistent everywoman hero. But at the center stood Freeman as a gentle little man who, bit by bit, loses hold of his humanity. If Freeman doesn't make that transformation work, Fargo doesn't work either — and boy, did it.

TV newcomers of the year: Gina Rodriguez and Gael Garcia Bernal

She plays the miraculous virgin in CW's equally miraculous Jane the Virgin. He plays the clearly not virginal conductor in the last great series of 2014, Amazon's Mozart in the Jungle. He's had a successful career in film, but neither of them has done much series work and neither is a household name. Well, memorize those names, because you'd be hard-pressed to find two more talented actors or charming performances.

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More highlights from 2014 from the TV staff

• Most intensely disliked series finale: How I Met Your Mother (CBS), in which the recently introduced title character was killed off so that Ted and Robin, who we were told wouldn't end up together, did. Runner-up: True Blood (HBO).
• Biggest TV-event letdown: Discovery's Eaten Alive,in which Paul Rosolie's quest to be consumed by an anaconda (to "save the Amazon rainforest") led only to his arm getting squeezed by one already in captivity. Runner-up: NBC's Peter Pan Live!, which managed only half the audience of The Sound of Music, proving that last year viewers may have been more primed for Carrie Underwood than the rebirth of the live musical.
• Most dramatic death scenes: Sure, there were dramatic departures of The Good Wife's Will Gardner, House of Cards' Zoe and Sons of Anarchy's Jax and Gemma, along with countless victims on The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, including its despicable King Joffrey. Still, Michelle Fairley may take the cake: After her Catelyn Stark was killed in Thrones' 2013 "Red Wedding" massacre, her evil Margot was tossed out a window by Jack Bauer on 24: Live Another Day, though Fairley managed to return from the dead on ABC's Resurrection.
• Most successful handoff: After poorly handled late-night transitions involving Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno, NBC tossed Leno to the curb (again) and installed Jimmy Fallon at The Tonight Show, who not only maintained but improved upon Leno's status as the top-rated host, helping another SNL veteran, Seth Meyers, establish his own talk show in Tonight's wake. Smoother changes are to come in 2015, when Stephen Colbert replaces David Letterman and James Corden takes over for Craig Ferguson, both on CBS, and Larry Wilmore fills Colbert's slot on Comedy Central.
• New presidents we're most looking forward to: Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) on Netflix's House of Cards, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Selina Meyer on HBO's Veep.
• Most embarrassing flops (unscripted): Utopia (Fox), the "social experiment" that had contestants build a new society in Santa Clarita, Calif. (scripted): Manhattan Love Story (ABC), the first of several unrequited romantic sitcoms to get the ax. Even more embarrassing: Fox's Hieroglyph, which never got on the air in the first place.