Over the past 5-10 years, television has increasingly taken over as the dominant filmed art form in terms of quality. There have certainly been many great theatrical films over that span, and it’s still tough to beat the experience of the big screen, but television’s ability to tell complex tales across multiple seasons and to evolve characters over many years is unique.

I don’t know when the switch came from episodic television that was truly episodic (with each hour or half-hour essentially self-contained) to the complicated mythologies that are so common today. Perhaps it was Twin Peaks or The X-Files, or something earlier that I’ve never seen.

At any rate, somewhere along the line I’ve become more excited about sitting in front of the TV on Wednesday night than heading to the movie theater on Friday night (with a handful of exceptions each year). And this season is shaping up to be possibly the best I’ve ever seen.

It started with Friday Night Lights and Mad Men, which dominated my Fall viewing — two extremely different programs which can both stake a claim as the best show on TV. A couple of months ago I planned a blog post on the two shows that I never got around to writing based on the premise that Mad Men is ‘art as life’ while Friday Night Lights is ‘life as art.’ That thesis aside, their brilliant writing, acting and direction place them above anything I saw in theaters in 2008.

But that was just the beginning. The Winter/Spring season came roaring out of the gate with perhaps the best seasons yet of some of my favorite shows.

• 24: Coming out of an extended slump and a year off due to the writers’ strike, 24 has rebounded with a ridiculously exciting seventh season. The change in location from L.A. to Washington D.C. was a great move, as was the introduction of FBI agent (and Erica Hill-lookalike) Renee Walker, who sees the logic in Jack Bauer’s methods but doesn’t quite have the stomach for them. She’s a wonderful foil for Jack and I hope she survives the day.

• Survivor – Tocantins: The show that launched the reality craze remains the only one I’ve ever watched, but I’ve watched it religiously through all 18 seasons. This year’s group of contestants is one of the best in years, with no fewer than seven players I’m actively rooting for and a couple I actively despise.

• Battlestar Galactica: One of television’s most provocative and powerful shows, Galactica too was coming off a mediocre season. But this final span, with just two episodes remaining in the series, has been as strong as anything in the show’s amazing run.

The season premiere answered two of the show’s principal mysteries — will the fleet ever reach Earth and who is the final Cylon? — almost as afterthoughts. Then they got down to the stuff that has always made Galactica great… tense personal showdowns, political conflict, questions of identity and ultimate meaning. We have learned the intricate back story of the Cylons (and it actually makes sense), we’ve suffered unexpected losses and witnessed the evil people (and machines) can do. And through it all there has been just the faintest flickering ember of hope, which I pray will not be extinguished by the series’ conclusion. But knowing these guys, things won’t end well.

• Lost: Finally, this is the show that could well go down as the greatest ever once it has finished its run a year from now. Lost was unique and exhilarating from the moment it began and it has only grown more fascinating over the years, as show runners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have been given free reign to craft their intricate story.

This season, which is halfway complete, could well go down as the show’s best so far. And I can sum up why that’s the case in just two words: time travel. I am a sucker for a a good time travel story, and Lindelof and Cuse have offered up a great one. They are also clearly focused on where this story will end and how it will get there, so we’re getting answers to questions raised long ago, new perspectives on old story lines and characters. And they’ve pulled off these fanciful plot tricks while still managing to focus on emotional nuance — particularly when it comes to Sawyer, who now more than ever is the heroic center of the show.

So, in a nutshell, I believe we’re in a golden age of televised entertainment and I can’t remember a season in which all the shows I watch have been this consistently excellent (and this doesn’t even count the episodes of The Office and 30 Rock I have stacked up on the DVR).

I sure hope things end as well as they’ve started. I hear Kim is coming back to 24… let’s pray she’s not bringing any cougars.