Ground Rules first. This is a list of the best TV shows, movies and video games that I saw (played) for the first time in 2010. The TV/movies/games didn’t have to be distributed in 2010. And this is the best TV/movies/video games I saw(played) this year in no particular order.

• Dr. Who – Prior to this series, I was not a Dr. Who fan. I hadn’t seen any episodes before (although I had heard about it). So when the new Doctor (played by Matt Smith) came on boards, this seemed like as good a time as any to jump on. And I’m glad I did. With Karen Gillan as the companion, Matt Smith’s Doctor was quirky, funny, exciting and just plain good. Steven Moffat was the new showrunner and he made the show great for a new viewer (and I hope existing viewers as well)
• Sherlock Holmes – Not the movie, but the TV series from BBC and Dr. Who showrunner Steven Moffat. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are brought into the 21st century while keeping it quintessentially Sherlock Holmes. The three 90 minute episodes were exciting and fun. The first and last were much better than the middle one though.
• Avatar – I can’t say how well it translated to DVD (or Blu-ray), but it was the movie spectacular of the year, possibly the decade. It was a technological marvel with a story existing only to bring us from exciting 3-D vision to exciting 3-D vision. Don’t watch this for the story or the characters, the landscape and the technology is the movie.
• Toy Story 3 – Pixar did something that most people would consider impossible, they improved on two great movies and made a fitting bookend to the characters we’ve known and loved for 15+ years. A wonderful story and characters with Pixar’s distinctive style.
• Batman: Arkham Asylum – A wonderful game that showcases Batman and his cast of characters and rogue’s gallery. Great gameplay with a good storyline. We’ll see if the sequel lives up to the original next year.

This post is part of the thread: BestOf – an ongoing story on this site. View the thread timeline for more context on this post.