I am no Darwinist, but as I see it, the Age of the Grown Man is nearly complete. After several thousand years of hunting, gathering, procreating, and rescuing, it’s quite possible that The Grown Man has only a few decades left before he morphs into another species. (Disclaimer: With only one semester of college biology under my belt and no Y chromosome in my DNA, I might be the wrong candidate for recording such a primitive history, but indulge me; writers get paid to exaggerate stuff in order to make a point--or in this case, give it away for free).

Eons ago, the Grown Man relied on physical strength. He had to; otherwise, he and his family might die. Without the luxury of believing he had eighty years in front of him, he got right to the business of surviving. That’s about it.

In 2020, will there be TV anymore? Who knows. But on the off chance that the death of television hasn’t been greatly exaggerated and is indeed imminent, we can at least celebrate the good twilight years that were the 2000s. In case TV fades into oblivion or merges with the Internet or something, this wasn’t such a bad decade to have ended on.

Here are my picks for the best TV shows of the decade:

1) Friday Night Lights (NBC, 2006-present): This show, based on a movie that was based on a book, became the best adapted television show of all time. More than a high school football show, FNL is beautiful rendered, stunningly mature look at Middle America. It’s close to perfect on almost every level and one of the great dramas of the contemporary network era.