By Robert Bianco
Gannett News Service

Television actors are an underappreciated lot. Not financially, of course. When it comes to cash, starring in a TV series is one of America's most well-rewarded professions.

Yet despite the riches TV stars still lack status in the acting world. Movies are more glamorous, the stage more prestigious, which may be why so many TV stars migrate to both.

In part, this denigration of TV actors is a long-standing hangover from the industry's early days, when TV was seen as the last, sad stop before career oblivion.

Times have changed, but one major factor hasn't: the inherent limitations of the medium itself. Where movies and theater are larger than life, TV is smaller. Series television is built upon empathy and familiarity, upon characters who come into our homes every week.

That familiarity often fools people into thinking TV actors are just "being themselves." Even other actors have confessed their surprise at discovering that NYPD Blue star Dennis Franz is nothing at all like Andy Sipowicz, the character he has so indelibly created.

And so as the season winds down, and ends this week, it seems like a good time to honor a few actors who gave the year's most valuable performances. I admit the number is arbitrary and unfair, and there are many more actors who could have made the list.

With that caveat, here a select few:

• David Boreanaz, Angel in Angel

Boreanaz has made Angel into one of TV's most complicated saviors, a redeemer who only barely understands his own search for redemption.

It helps that Boreanaz has been working with some of the best writers in TV. Still, his own growth as an actor hasn't received enough credit. In the seven years he has been playing Angel (first on Buffy the Vampire Slayer then on his own WB show), he has gone from brooding hunk to multifaceted hero.

• Tyne Daly, Maxine Gray in Judging Amy

It takes a great actress to shine through mediocre material.

Oh, don't get me wrong. There should always be a place on TV for shows like CBS' Judging Amy, an easy-to-digest legal/family soap built around an immensely likeable star, Amy Brenneman. But I wouldn't watch the show without Daly, the lone astringent substance among the syrup and the only complex note in an overly simplistic show.

When an actress has been this good for this long, it's easy to take her for granted. Don't make that mistake.

• Jennifer Garner, Sydney Bristow in Alias

Sydney is the kind of role that can make a young actress's career, and Garner has made the most of it.

It's hard to imagine anyone else as Sydney, which is one of the tests of a TV star. Her all-American, athletic "good-girl" aura is not only a perfect fit for Sydney, it also makes her undercover array of trashy bad-girl disguises amusing rather than disturbing.

• Anthony LaPaglia, Jack Malone in Without a Trace

Perhaps the best news this season has been the return of two fabulous actors to series television, David Caruso on CSI: Miami and LaPaglia on CBS' Without a Trace. Though both men have lived up to their promise, Trace has given LaPaglia a few more extended opportunities to shine.

If you saw Trace's season finale Thursday, you know what I mean. Much of the hour was devoted to Jack's one-on-one encounter with a man who was holding him hostage. The crowning moment of the performance, though, was the beautiful final scene, after Jack returned home. As he sat watching his estranged wife sleep, he looked out the window at the site of the World Trade Center and silently wept over all he and we had lost.

• Andrea Martin, Aunt Voula in My Big Fat Greek Life

Anyone who doubts we're in a sitcom slump need only look at CBS' Life, which took a small but heartfelt movie and removed everything that was original or true. Even star Nia Vardalos, who had a laid-back charm in the film, is now so large and crass that she practically overwhelms her defenseless supporting cast.

Except for Martin, a brilliant comedian who can fashion a laugh out of even the thinnest material. Comic genius is one of God's great gifts, one that sometimes seems to be beyond dissection or explanation. Martin just seems to know how long to hold a look and how big to make a gesture.

• Neil McDonough, David McNorris in Boomtown

It only stands to reason that the year's best series would house some of its best actors. McDonough was at the center of two of the NBC drama's best episodes, and his character took the most interesting personal journey.

When we met McNorris, he seemed like your typical slick, good-looking, ambitious TV district attorney. But there was always something about McDonough that made the character seem deeper and somehow disquieting.

Over the course of the shortened season, McDonough exposed the demons behind the facade, but he did so in a way that made both the collapse and the promise of recovery seem inevitable. Nothing on the recently announced network schedules made me happier than the return of his show, and another year with McNorris and his friends.

• Sara Rue, Claude Casey in Less Than Perfect

What a perfect joy Rue has been in this agreeable little ABC sitcom . And as the show itself moved away from an opening reliance on weight/food jokes, it has allowed us to appreciate Rue for what she is: a lovely, lovable normal-sized young woman with a real flair for comedy.

In truth, her show is a bit weightless: The people are pleasant, but you never really believe any of them exist. Still, there's a freshness and sweetness to Rue's performance and to her interaction with the supporting cast that makes you hope Less could someday be more.

• Tony Shalhoub, Adrian Monk in Monk

Television has always adored detectives, which is why they've come in so many shapes and sizes. Still, there has never been one quite like Monk, the obsessive-compulsive cop played with such comic dexterity by Shalhoub.

The joy usually is not in watching Monk solve the case, but in watching him fight his psychosis as he does so. In an understated yet hilarious performance, Shalhoub pulls us into every one of Monk's fidgety struggles.