Look Back in Amazement at Season’s Small-Screen Images

There was pain. There was shame. There was controversy. There was innovation. There were big, big goodbyes, sad farewells, a really bad marriage and one incredible prime-time game.

Looking back, the 1999-2000 season that ended last week--while not always the proudest of passages in TV history--was, in the aggregate, extraordinary.

Think about it:

And the winner is: What show changed the rules of the prime-time game, made a superstar out of a talk-show host and saved a network from ratings disaster? The answer is too easy for even the first round of ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”--a bolt of TV lightning that beat just about everything but CBS’ “Jesus.” For the time being, on network television at least, Regis Philbin is a god. Or is it the million dollars? And what’s Regis going to do for an “Is that your final answer?” encore?

Who wants to make a fool of themselves?: Most years, it’s all but impossible to pick one TV program or one moment that’s more disgraceful, more tasteless, more inexplicable than the rest. But this time around, it was no contest. In a year full of failure, Fox Broadcasting Co. distinguished itself in the realm of the infamy. We were all aghast by the utter lack of class and dignity it must have taken to get Darva Conger and Rick Rockwell--the here-today, gone-tomorrow husband and wife--united for all to see on the Fox fiasco “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?” Forget about whatever money Conger and Rockwell may get out of all this, Fox will go on. Conger and Rockwell will always be losers. As for the women who didn’t win, consider yourself lucky, ladies. Very lucky, indeed.

The big goodbyes: Michael J. Fox walked away from “Spin City” for all the right reasons: to live his life, focus on his family and employ his star power to help find a cure for Parkinson’s disease, the illness that has changed his life but deepened his spirit. Fox Broadcasting’s “Beverly Hills, 90210” signed off after 10 years and a trend-setting history that had a deceptively profound impact on television, like those kids or not. Millions of dollars couldn’t keep Julianna Margulies from walking away from NBC’s top-rated “ER.” Whether she had temporarily lost sight of her sanity or is one of the most noble of actresses, it was nice to see her end up in the arms of George Clooney on camera.

Letterman’s big attack: One night he’s interviewing the first lady, and next he’s having his chest sawed open. Kathie Lee Gifford is enlisted as a stand-in host--and kills. Talk about making the most of a bad situation. If anything, Letterman’s near-death experience brought “The Late Show With David Letterman” back to life.

The diversity thing: The NAACP called the networks on their whitewash of a prime-time season. So many shows and so few faces of color. The debate led to a lot of speeches, a lot of meetings, a lot of ink, a bunch of color-added co-stars and one series, CBS’ “City of Angels,” that might otherwise have been canceled. Not much in the way of progress. Next year, however, promises more shows with actors of color in lead roles, including ABC’s “Gideon’s Crossing” with Andre Braugher and NBC’s “DAG” with David Alan Grier.

UPN takes action: Critics pounded UPN for polluting the air with the no-holds-barred, sex-and-violence circus known as “WWF Smackdown!” They were a lot easier on Fox’s “Action,” a nasty little satire for Hollywood insiders that left the rest of the country cold. To add insult to injury, the show that slammed “Action” to the mat was--you guessed it--”Smackdown!” Brawn over brains. Simple as that.

The millennium and the big bug: Maybe it was much ado about nothing. Maybe, without all those stories, all those news reports, speculative specials, Top 10 lists, retrospectives and the like leading up to the new millennium, the Y2K bug might have had a real sting. Disaster might have struck. Instead, it was as it should have ideally been--a satellite view of the global village that, for now, only television can offer.

Wall Street: Admit it, you barely knew CNBC existed before the stock market got interesting. Now it’s part of just about everyone’s TV portfolio.