Your love for the show depends on your tolerance for Leary and his overbearing character. [30 May 2006, p.28]

Executive producer Ryan Murphy--best known for “Glee,” “American Horror Story” and “Scream Queens”--here has created his most mature, confident series. He also directed the first two episodes, and his work is free of cheap tricks or gimmicks. The truth is so strange, he doesn’t need them.

Game of Thrones starts less like an epic and more like a session of "Medieval Sims."

It’s like attempting to empty the ocean with a bucket. But this season of“American Crime makes the case if you aren’t trying, you’re the problem.

There isn’t another show that can go from laugh-out-loud funny to soul-crushing sadness in a beat.

But this is certainly a flat beginning, appropriately titled ``Scattered,'' with its multiple plotlines stretched awfully thin. [15 July 2005, p.e24]

Boomtown stumbles when it adopts an occasional sanctimonious tone. And, like most cop shows, it contains liberal doses of violence and the ubiquitous sexually depraved perp. But Boomtown also is an impressive accomplishment in editing that will keep you hanging on until the final scene. [29 Sept 2002, p.55]

Giving McGregor two roles seems at first like an oddball casting choice for a show that doesn’t need any more weirdness. Two episodes aren’t enough to say whether it is justified as more than Emmy bait for McGregor. Of the two roles, he seems more convincing as Ray. Thewlis oozes menace and charm as a mobster who has seen the world. ... Pack light. Fargo moves fast.

There's still heat to Rescue Me - it just needs something to stoke the drama. [19 June 2005, p.A03]

The Sci Fi Channel's brilliantly reinvented Battlestar Galactica - a terrific miniseries in 2003 - is now the full series it deserves to be. If it's given the room to grow that the 1978 original never got, it could end up being one of the best sci-fi television outings ever...An intelligent, attention-demanding, character-driven show, it marks a maturing of the sci-fi series genre. This series is to ``Star Trek'' what ``Hill Street Blues'' was to ``Dragnet.''

What a dazzling bunch of jerks. Yet, somehow, they are family and you can't help but laugh at them. Arrested Development is so dopey - but slick dopey. [2 Nov 2003, p.39]

The womanizing, booze-guzzling, chain-smoking ad exec (played brilliantly by Jon Hamm) at the heart of AMC's Emmy Award-winning drama Mad Men has found a curvy sliver of joy in his life.

Go ahead and give this little show a chance. To paraphrase Coach Taylor's refrain: Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can't lose this show. [5 Oct 2007, p.e23]

Buscemi is the only big-name actor associated with this cast, and though he seems to be having a great time strutting onscreen, most of the others aren't up to sharing the screen with him.

Time’s biggest takeaway is that cases like this--indigent defendants being abused by the judicial and then the corrections system--are more the norm than the exception.

"Brooklyn Bridge" may be too delicate and heartfelt to survive amongst its colder, more cynical competition. But it deserves a decent chance. Shows this good don't come along very often. [26 Sep 1991]

Just at the moment when you’re getting tired of the “Groundhog Day” antics and thinking Nadia’s rerun rumpus is a trip to anywhere, Russian Doll drops a twist in its third episode that changes everything.

'24' is exciting and intriguing. The cast is appealing. Using a split-screen technique to further propel the interlocking story lines, the drama has an edgy, hip style, enveloping you in suspense and danger. [6 Nov 2001]

Veep manages to curse almost as creatively as HBO’s beloved cult series “Deadwood,” and, with its raging boss and conniving sycophants, is the heir to NBC’s “The Office” we didn’t know we needed.

We've all been there. Which is why Freaks and Geeks works so well. Cloaked in grunginess, it's a totally unpretentious slice of high school life, a decidedly unmelodramatic drama devoid of "Dawson's Creek"-speak and sticky self-analysis. No one is wearing designer duds and the closing scene at the high school homecoming dance reveals that not one student possesses a shred of rhythm. [25 Sept 1999, p.25]

The constant bickering would quickly wear thin in a (gulp!) "Curb Your Enthusiasm" marathon, but over the course of a half-hour or two, it's amusing to watch him play a human matchstick and light a fuse wherever he goes. [4 Jan 2004]

Unlike "The Wire," the pacing is lazy. Many of the moments seem authentic, but to paraphrase director Alfred Hitchcock: A good show is life minus the boring parts.

A wonderful comedy that twists the family sitcom genre to a screwball turn. [6 Jan 2000]

Mad Men is back with another ridiculously addictive season.

Documentary Now! is smart TV.

It's a bloody good, gory hour, and I don't know how Southland will top this. But I can't wait to see what's around the corner.

The #MeToo movement would seem impossible to riff on, yet Veep’s gloriously inappropriate writers have found a way.

Written well and delicately plotted, this new WB drama has staying power. You will want to know what happens to our heroine with the Botticelli visage. [29 Sept 1998, p.45]