How I Met Your Mother: Season 5

By the fifth season, this premise is growing a little bit threadbare (particularly after some of the red herrings of the past two seasons), yet the show continues to hold abundant pleasures. The cast--Josh Radnor, Cobie Smulders, Alyson Hannigan, Jason Segel, and Neil Patrick Harris--have an effortless lock on their characters, allowing them to pull off some perilously goofy bits that, in less confident hands, could have foundered (a musical homage to wearing suits, for example). The writing is crisp and driven; this half-hour sitcom crams in more plot turns than your average hour-long drama. The fifth season is not good to start with--the humor is much, much stronger if you've grown to love these characters over the previous four seasons--but for everyone who's been following Ted, Robin, Marshall, Lily, and Barney, it's essential viewing. Some surprising moments of melancholy are completely earned and stand out from the typical sitcom overreaching for "significance"; these moments are successfully rooted in the characters, who become more real every season… yes, even Barney. --Bret Fetzer