CLINTON IN CHIEF It looked like coup d’état, c’est moi: former President Bill Clinton back in the White House press room, holding an impromptu but long-winded news conference about the tax compromise bill, and also about Haiti and arms control. Mr. Clinton, who never looked happier, kept talking even after President Obama, perhaps tired of acting as coat holder, excused himself. Joe Scarborough said on MSNBC that for Mr. Clinton the return to the West Wing was like visiting grandchildren: “all of the fun, none of the responsibility.”  MR. COLBERT GOES TO WASHINGTON The comedian Stephen Colbert testified before a House subcommittee on immigration in character as the right-wing cable bloviator he plays on “The Colbert Report.” Among other things he proposed ways to crack down on farmers’ reliance on migrant workers. “The obvious answer is for all of us to stop eating fruits and vegetables,” he said. “And if you look at the recent obesity statistics, you’ll see that many Americans have already started.”  HELEN THOMAS LEAVES WASHINGTON The unofficial dean of the White House press corps, Helen Thomas, was forced out of her job at 89 after she told a rabbi on the White House lawn that the Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine.” She also suggested that they “go home” to Poland and Germany among other places. Instead Hearst Newspapers handed Ms. Thomas, a Lebanese-American reporter and columnist, a one-way ticket into retirement.  SUPERBOWL AD No one expected Jay Leno and his longtime enemy David Letterman to sit together on a couch on either side of Ms. Winfrey, especially so soon after all that late-night agita over Conan O’Brien’s ouster from “The Tonight Show.” Their tongue-in-cheek 15-second super spot was a plug for the “Late Show With David Letterman,” but it mostly provided a boost for Mr. Leno, who was villainized by Team Coco as the Judas of late night.  TIGER WOODS UNWINDS The cool, self-contained golf pro made an Oprah-style confession, apologizing to his wife and the world for his marital indiscretions on camera. “I was unfaithful,” he said. “I had affairs. I cheated.” It was a long, vulnerable and sometimes teary mea culpa by a notoriously self-contained professional athlete. It helped get him back in the game, but not back in the house. His wife, Elin, divorced him a few months later.  THE NAUGHTY GOOD WIFE Many viewers were caught off guard by a sex scene on the CBS drama “The Good Wife.” Peter Florrick (Chris Noth), an Eliot Spitzer-ish disgraced politician, is turned on watching his wife, Alicia (Julianna Margulies), a lawyer, make a power play in court. In their bathroom that night, he grabs her and, the camera elliptically suggests, performs oral sex. (The new movie “Blue Valentine” has a similar, if more graphically simulated act, and was slapped with an NC-17 rating; it took a team of lawyers that included David Boies to get it knocked down to R.)  MAD MEN MAKES NICE Even the series finale of “The Sopranos” couldn’t top the surprise ending of “Mad Men.” Don Draper, whose affair with Faye, a smart, age-appropriate marketing consultant, was still going strong, proposed marriage out of the blue to his young, coltish and adoring secretary, Megan. Faye was the only one who saw it coming; early on she breezily told the newly divorced Don that he, like so many of his type, would be married within a year.  A version of this article appears in print on December 19, 2010, on Page AR16 of the New York edition with the headline: Unexpected, Unfiltered, Unbelievable, Unctuous. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Scripted television had some high points this year, but the more arresting scenes popped up in real life, or at least on reality series and talk shows.