‘Tis the season for Top 10 lists. And TV critic Ed Martin will compile his 10 Best TV Shows of 2010 next week, but today in HuffPo he picks his Alternative Ten Best. On the list: The Fourth Hour of the “Today” show:

What the heck is this show doing on a top ten list, you ask? It’s here because the fourth hour of Today is the most enjoyable and viewer friendly live program on daytime television. Live with Regis and Kelly is too rigidly structured to permit true spontaneity, The View is just too distressing to sit through (it went fantastically off the rails when co-hosts Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg gave in to their tempers and huffed off the set because guest Bill O’Reilly made a remark they objected to) and The Talk has yet to become anything special. In contrast, sparkling, self-deprecating co-hosts Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb took the tail end of Today and turned it into an hour of fresh, fast-paced, irresistible fun.