On the fifth day of Christmas, TV gave to me ... five cancelled shows ...

Every new season, a network will cancel a show (at least) that a ton of people like. Of course, every year the networks cancel shows that nobody likes. The five shows on this list include a little of both. Feel free to list other shows in the comments, but these are the five that stood out to me in 2009.

1. Guiding Light. I had to put Guiding Light at number one. You can't put the cancellation of a show that was on every weekday for 72 years at number three or number five. It just wouldn't be right, even if the show did limp to its end. The longest-running soap opera (and one of the longest-running shows on TV, period) started on radio in 1937 and switched to television in 1952 (it was actually on both radio and TV for a while). The last episode aired in September.

2. Southland. This is the cancelled show that was saved by Twitter ... maybe. NBC ticked off fans when they cancelled the gritty cop drama even before any of the new episodes for the season aired. Then the fans took to Twitter. While it wasn't just that bit of dedicated fan fervor that got TNT to buy the show from NBC, it certainly helped. TNT will show all of the episodes that were already in the can, and if the ratings for those episodes show some spark, you might see even more go into production.

Southland fans, you better get on Twitter again when the show comes back on January 12.

3. Dollhouse. Let's be honest here. Everyone in the galaxy knew that this show wasn't going to last very long. And let's be honest about this too: Dollhouse fans are lucky Fox even gave it another season. But now it's gone, and it's another example that Fox-haters can use in the future when they want to say how bad Fox is and that it sucks when they "don't even give shows a chance before they cancel them!"

But it's OK. Creator Joss Whedon will be back with something else soon enough. And Fox will probably air it.

4. The Beautiful Life. Does anyone even remember this disaster? It was produced by Ashton Kutcher (who had more luck on Twitter this year than with this show) and aired on The CW for about seven minutes. It will be added to the answer of the classic trivia question, "What TV shows only lasted two episodes?"

I think it had something to do with a model.

5. Hank. It's not that Hank was some embarrassing, unfunny failure ... well, actually, maybe it was. It starred Kelsey Grammer, but he was stuck in a show that not only didn't have any laughs, it didn't have any personality either. It was just ... there, taking up space on ABC's lineup. I don't know what type of show Grammer will do next, but I hope it's something that will erase people's memories of this show. If people remember it at all.

Twelve shows a stinkin'
Eleven babes worth watchin'
Ten shows on DVD
Nine on-air breakdowns
Eight stars a'shinin'
Seven shows a'thrivin'
Six shows you should be watchin'