Comedies, finales and 'Idol!' Oh my!

Have you ever seen “Poltergeist”? It was a little bit like that.

When I turned on the television last night hoping to see a basketball game or maybe a “King of Queens” rerun, I found only static. From that static, images and words slowly began to reveal themselves, and before long I knew what I was watching. It was a recap of 2011 in television, sent to my flat screen from the not-so-distant future.

The phantasmagoric montage showed me clips from shows that have not yet aired, and I was able to sort the good from the bad without the hassle of actually watching anything.

The first thing I learned was that two traditionally strong shows in their first seasons without crucial cast members – Fox’s “American Idol” without Simon Cowell and NBC’s “The Office” without Steve Carell – were shells of what they once were. Steven Tyler was a sorry substitution for Simon’s vitriol on “Idol,” and the funny supporting cast of NBC’s most popular comedy fell flat without a clear central character to help guide their storylines.

The electromagnetic crystal ball then segued seamlessly into a recap of the other NBC comedies: “30 Rock,” too, continued its decline from its earlier greatness, and “Outsourced” and “Perfect Couples” were canceled midseason after bouts with poor ratings and general awfulness. “Parks and Recreation” and “Community,”  however, were expected to sweep the Emmy comedy categories after tremendous showings in their third and second seasons, respectively.

The ghoulish year-in-review then sputtered out two big recaps of drama series — one good, and one horrible. The good series was HBO’s “Big Love,” which concluded its run with a masterful fifth season whose finale tied up all the loose ends in a satisfying way. The bad series was the sophomore season of AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” a series that started with a brilliant pilot and started spiraling downward immediately afterward. By the end of the second season, it was little more than a gratuitous bloodbath with so little in common with the comic book that spawned it that it could hardly be called an adaptation at all.

The last thing that the ghost of television yet-to-come showed me wasn’t a TV show at all but a movie made by two men that TV has been very good to: Adult Swim’s Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. Their “Billion Dollar Movie,” co-produced by Will Ferrell, took the place of a sixth season of “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” and transcended even its absurd greatness. In a flash, the static ghoul showed me all of the guest appearances that the movie would include, but it went too fast for me to recognize any besides John C. Reilly and David Cross.

Just before my magic future TV feed shut off, it granted me one last message: What we will remember as the best shows of 2011 aren’t coming later in the year.

They’re here.