The big hits of 2014, My Kitchen Rules and two versions of The Block, were as much soap operas as talent quests. The contestants were carved into archetypal characters with classic story arcs, allowing viewers to share what a Seven programmer described as "pride, heartbreak, despair and intoxicating joy". The  music soundtracks told us when to laugh, when to cry and when to rage.

Some characters objected to being dramatised – Steve and Chantelle, contestants on The Block: Fans v Faves, went onto social media to complain: "We thought the hardest part of this experience was operating at peak physical levels on two to three hours sleep per night for 10 weeks solid ... Turns out the hardest part is the 'magic' of television [production and editing, creating situations] and some media twisting stories too. Double fabrications. Awesome." Steve added that he was "super-sick of the story arc being that I'm in some way mentally deficient". (They won the series, with $736,000 to calm their apprehensions).

Other characters embraced the melodrama, even working to enhance it. The women in Real Housewives of Melbourne (a Foxtel construction) were so dramatic they made viewers wonder if they were actors. But if they were, they were very bad actors, and the ratings gave Foxtel no incentive to shift the franchise to Sydney, where phoniness is a way of life.

In The Bachelor, Blake was so embedded in character he proposed to leading contestant Sam (when he didn't need to) and then stretched the narrative by sliding from romantic protagonist to love rat (turning Sam into The Wronged Heroine). Mills & Boon couldn't have done it better. (By sheer coincidence, Big Brother produced its own love rat three weeks later, but it didn't help the ratings. By that point, Big Brother was terminal.)

Overall, that kind of unscripted storytelling proved so successful that Seven's advertising for next year's My Kitchen Rules looks like a parody of The Bold and the Beautiful. Apparently it will be a battle between the Queensland bogans and the Melbourne snobs (Kath and Kim vs Prue and Trude), with a whipcracking Texas cowboy as referee. It's possible viewers will reach the limit of credulity, and then where does mainstream go?

But let's move on to this year's accreditations. Here are my awards:

Top TV moments of 2014: Ian Thorpe reveals he is gay during an interview with Michael Parkinson (1.1 million viewers on Channel Ten); The parents who (possibly) rejected Thai surrogate baby Gammy appear on 60 Minutes and alienate every viewer; Foxtel reduces its prices (but not enough to justify subscribing); Doctor Who reappears with a Scottish accent; The moral-degenerates of Family Guy invade the child-friendly progressives of The Simpsons; Channel Ten shuts down its breakfast show when it realises it's never going to get above a national audience of 40,000; Chris Lilley puts his fans to sleep with too many episodes of Jonah from Tonga; Samantha Armytage, a decidedly sexy human, replaces the equally sexy (but older) Melissa Doyle on Seven's Sunrise, but pushes her luck with an evening show called Bringing Sexy Back, which flops; Karl Stefanovic wears the same suit every day for a year on Nine's Today show, which apparently has something to do with supporting feminism, but Lisa Wilkinson still finds him boring.

Most believable reality show: The Checkout (ABC1), which was a model of the ABC doing what only the ABC can do – warning us against the scams sometimes perpetrated by the companies who pay for advertising and product placements on commercial networks. Runner-up: The Embassy (Nine).

Best sport coverage: Roy and HG at the Sochi Winter Olympics (Ten). Their commentary was so brave, it was hard to believe they were not killed - or worse, expelled. As Roy remarked: "If I hear 'time to shine' again, I'm going to kill someone. And in a place where it's not uncommon to shoot people, I would get away with it."

Best Australian drama: Party Tricks, with writing that impeccably captured the nature of Australian politics, and acting that showed Asher Keddie and Rodger Corser were far better than we'd imagined. Runner-up: The Code (ABC1), but did it have to be so complicated?

Most intriguing character of the year: Saga Noren/Sonya Cross/Elise Wasserman (Sonia Helin in The Bridge, Sweden; Diane Kruger in The Bridge, US; Clemence Poesy in The Tunnel, UK). Never has Asperger's been so cool.

Least Plausible Reality Show: Shared between The Real Housewives of Melbourne (Arena); Young, Lazy and Driving Us Crazy (Seven); Beauty and the Geek (Seven); Please Marry My Boy (Seven).

Most influential drama: True Detective (Foxtel, but available on DVD and online). An murder mystery that convinced Hollywood's top actors they could show their talents on TV without being committed for more than a year, convinced producers stories didn't have to be stretched beyond eight episodes and convinced writers that they could plan a beginning, a middle and an end without being required to do a cliffhanger for next year. Runner-up: Fargo.

They said it, about TV or on TV
Robin Williams on Australians (in The Crazy Ones): "Oh God, how I hate them. They're so smug in their board shorts. And that accent. It's like sand in your ears. G'day mate, no worries, put another shrimp on the barbie, Sheila this is Bruce. Their two-dollar coin is smaller than their one dollar coin. Every single animal down there can kill you ... They also gave us The Wiggles, which are only enjoyable if you're high. What kind of message is that for kids?".

Roy Slaven on conditions at the Sochi Winter Olympics: "The disappointing thing for the Olympians, in our village, they've only got 14 condoms each. That'd go in an hour. They haven't factored in how fit they are." HG Nelson: "Did you bring in a backpack of spares? Have you been passing them around?" Roy: I've been selling them – 50 roubles a box."

John Stephens, former programming guru for Nine and Seven, on why he wants to stay with Seven: "Now that I have stopped the painkillers and other drugs and with a clear mind, I feel that I can no longer accept the appointment and will not be commencing employment with Ten."

Noni Hazlehurst on her first conversation with Bevan Lee, creator of A Place To Call Home: "I asked him why he wrote it and he said it was to attack bigotry and intolerance. I said, 'That's great, I can work with that.'"

Simon Burke, actor/ producer, on why Devil's Playground needed to be challenging:  "I don't go to movies any more, I just watch box sets of everything".

Stephen Dillane, who plays Stannis Baratheon in Game of Thrones, on why he doesn't watch it: "I don't have the attention span for these things. Something like Game of Thrones is a pretty tough watch. It takes a lot to get me sat down in front of something that's going to take 10 hours out of my life."

Debra Oswald, head writer for Offspring, on the influence of Game of Thrones: "The death of an important character early on is wonderful dramatically. If you've got a show that is about your main characters being in jeopardy a lot, the fact that one of them dies means the jeopardy is going to be much more potent all the time."

Bryan Brown on his first reaction to the first episode of Old School: "I've never looked so old in my life. I'm very confronted, and I can't even get involved in the story. Lenny is such a loser and I'm so old. Then I watched it again and I went 'Oh, that's quite clever, and I see the relationships are rather good relationships, and so people will probably warm to it.'"

Megan Boone on the transformation of her character between season one and season two of The Blacklist: "We had to make her extremely strong because people don't want to watch weak female characters any more … The beauty of the internet is that we get this instant reaction from the audience so we can then cultivate our future decisions. The producers are very attuned to what's going on with social media, the blogs, the Tumblr pages and everything, because they want to serve their audience."

Ray Martin on why First Contact was on SBS: "You and I know that commercial television in Australia is more conservative than the banks. They won't take any risks, even when the ABC does program after program that rates 1.2 million. That's a pity because I think audiences would lap this up. I think every Australian realises that the Aboriginal problem, quote unquote, is our festering sore, that we need to understand it."

Paul Melville, executive producer for Channel Seven of Beauty and the Geek: "We tell them in the screening process that you won't get famous by being in this show. People enjoy watching you for a few weeks, and then, because television is ephemera, they forget you. The girls love it because they get hair and make-up every day, spray tans two or three times a week. For a few weeks they are treated like a princess. The boys have worked it out strategically and tactically that there will be a reward if they allow themselves to present as an enhanced, almost cartoon-like version of a singularly focused individual, someone who hasn't thought about their clothes or the way they look."

Cate Blanchett on her doubts about Facebook and Twitter: "If you were a human piece of social media and walked around to everyone every 10 seconds asking 'Do you like me, do you like me?' that's ostensibly what you're doing. You'd think 'Get away' if social media was made into a human being; you'd think 'I do not want to have dinner with you'. It's the worst part of us as a species. It's a useful thing, but you've got to know how to handle it and you've go to know when to walk away from it."

For more, see smh.com.au/entertainment/blog/the-tribal-mind.