Technology puts viewers in control

It was a notably strong year for fictional TV, even if the Next Big David Chase still owes us the Next Big ''Sopranos"-like Masterpiece. But strong prime-time lineups aren't the major TV story of 2005; that would have more to do with how we get our TV, not what we're watching on it.

Yes, viewers were happily talking about ABC's ''Lost," Fox's ''House," HBO's ''Deadwood," and HBO's ''Rome," and not just because one-word titles are oh-so-easy to remember. These are simply top-notch series that don't leave you feeling duller when the closing credits roll.

Even TV comedy, so moribund of late, had a year of promise with NBC's ''My Name Is Earl," NBC's ''The Office," HBO's ''Entourage," Fox's ''Arrested Development," NBC's ''Scrubs," Fox's ''Family Guy," CBS's ''How I Met Your Mother," and a sadly underrated HBO satire called ''The Comeback." Laugh tracks and punch lines began to fade like NBC's ''Joey" has from the Nielsen Top 10, while character wit and timely humor found new footing.

TV has been delivering such ''quality" series for a few years now, of course, with serial fictions that don't insult while they entertain. It's not breaking news. These days, even those who traditionally wouldn't admit to watching TV have been able to dish HBO's ''Six Feet Under" (and its classy series finale this year) with an open smile. They can forget their TV shame and do the ''water cooler" thing. Sure, there's still more than enough dumb TV to narcotize the masses; the tube is stuffed with reality bottom-feeders such as ''Being Bobby Brown" and -- low of lows! -- ''Intervention." But if you've learned where the gold is buried, you can easily pan out four or five hours of excellent TV every week.

This year, however, TV was all about the technology, the delivery systems. The future we've been hearing about in sci-fi-like predictions began to seem real, as we increasingly became masters of our own TV domains. More than ever, we were watching TV on our time, and not the network's, enough so that Spoiler Alerts in newspapers and on radio became essential to protect viewers.

TiVo and other DVR devices became common and more easily understood by the mainstream. We were increasingly able to take the on-demand approach to viewing, both by watching shows on our personalized video recording systems and through the On Demand feature on our digital cable. Finally, TV addressed our growing preference to be in charge -- to ''go to" what we want to watch, just as we do on our computers. Rather than live at the whims of TV honchos and their block-building programming schemes, we started to enjoy a go-to culture on TV that enabled us to create our own private prime-time lineups.

And we learned we'd be able to watch our shows not only when we want, but where we want. This year, the networks started offering episodes to video iPod users for a fee, so that fans could stay up to date without relying on their TV sets. Mobile phones also made significant moves toward becoming TV players, as networks such as CBS announced plans to offer TV on wireless phones. While TV sets get bigger and more like movie screens, they're also getting smaller and more portable. Yep, we humans like to keep our options open.

And when we like something, we really like it. This year, TV producers explored audiences' willingness to become totally addicted. With shows such as ''Lost," ABC's ''Invasion," Fox's ''Prison Break," and ABC's ''Grey's Anatomy," the networks created mass TV cults that required fans to see every episode to understand the unfolding mysteries and melodramas. They tested our loyalty, and we passed with flying colors. And these ongoing stories, along with FX's ''Nip/Tuck," UPN's ''Veronica Mars," FX's ''Rescue Me," ABC's ''Desperate Housewives," Showtime's ''Sleeper Cell," and Fox's creatively renewed ''24," were worthwhile extended narratives that also cultivated viewer obsessiveness.

Not every successful show was a serial. A few of the slick procedural crime shows were consistently compelling, even while they were primarily built on one-off story lines. CBS's ''Without a Trace" has been extraordinary, as has CBS's ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." And, of course, there were notable one-off movies and miniseries, particularly HBO's ''Lackawanna Blues" with its revelatory performance by S. Epatha Merkerson and PBS's ''The Virgin Queen," an impassioned and lush look back at Elizabeth I.

But this year has been rare in the number of popular shows that rely on continuing plotlines and stretched-out mysteries. In 2005, TV demanded -- and won -- our commitment.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.