Breaking Bad is not an easy show to watch. [But] this is the Cranston show, and for those of us who still see reruns of “Malcolm in the Middle” and the red-faced, eye-bulging slapstick that Cranston was put through on that show, he is quite a revelation on Breaking Bad.

After a nine-month hiatus, one of the best new shows of last season returns from the undead with a bit more of the deviled edge that made it so great when it first emerged from the crypt in the fall of 2007.

All those ingredients make for a stew that, initially anyway, needs salt....Having seen two more promising later episodes, I say give Dollhouse time. And in the meantime, enjoy the set, the so-called dollhouse.

When Lost returns Wednesday with a thoroughly entertaining two-hour barnburner, you will want to be there.

As a comedy, it’s surprisingly entertaining....But what ultimately kept me watching, through every screener Showtime provided, was this audacious bit of acting from Collette.

I have now watched two episodes of the new A&E series The Beast, and I am filled with questions. How many brain cells did I lose watching two episodes of The Beast?

There is a distinctly 2002 feel to this season of 24....But you know what? It all manages to hold together.

The secret to the show’s success is not any of the overly familiar parts, but the nutty way Leverage throws them together. Also, Hutton is a great actor who generates plenty of crackle between Nate and his fellow fleecers.

I like the serious, gimmick-free approach of the show.

It’s an atmospheric, pinned-to-your-seat winner.

I think “Survivors” is going to have a hard time getting noticed, not just because BBC America is way up there on digital cable, but because the hoopla surrounding the end of “Lost” is unrelenting, and “Survivors” just hasn’t done anything to break through.

Thanks to the fact that Starz is pay cable and can say and show pretty much whatever it wants, this show ramps up the dramatic tension quickly and effectively.

The latest re-imagining of Daniel Defoe’s classic tale of a man shipwrecked on an island far from home has already earned its keep.

Surprise! It’s not nearly as bad as I thought.

While I prefer the British Mars, the show's premise is so strong that this decent execution of it is hard not to recommend.

The dialogue is surprisingly fresh, even to someone who's watched way too many MTV reality shows.

The show is entertaining enough, but the American Hood, played by Rufus Sewell, won't remind anyone of Patrick Stewart.

I like Gary Unmarried. It’s like other sitcoms I’ve seen of late involving newly broken-up households (remember when the sitcom single dad was widowed instead of divorced?).

["Gary Unmarried"] has lots of laughs. But not as many as tonight’s episode of the new Knight Rider.

The Mentalist is safe, predictable, manufactured crime drama … and it works.

Worst Week is Rube Goldberg meets Murphy’s Law meets the parents. And it’s hysterical.

Fringe does a pretty nifty job of balancing the demands of the paranormal genre against the viewer’s need for some comic relief.

My hope is that True Blood will get all of this tub-thumping out of the way in a few weeks and start its tremendous potential as an ensemble drama with hints of comedy.

It will take awhile to figure out whether Sons of Anarchy was worth the investment of our time.

Things may end badly for Vic, or not, but this I know for sure: The next time The Shield cheats its viewers will be the first.

Once again Simon and his producing partner, Ed Burns, plunge us deeply into the culture of foul-mouthed men, many of them barely out of their teens, who have ready access to firearms and agendas that have little to do with the American dream that you and I understood growing up. And, as before, you can’t stop watching it.

The comedy has a loose, improvisational feel to it, but is still pretty fast-paced. And the four characters are at their funniest just in the room alone, swapping lines with each other, an experience a lot of dudes in their 20s can relate to... or so I’m told.

The new version bears less of a resemblance to “ER”-styled medical drama of the 2000 “Hopkins” than it does to “The Hills,” the MTV sensation that introduced a whole new visual vocabulary to unscripted TV. The stories still involve people being treated at Hopkins, of course, but what’s striking is how much time is spent outside the hospital with the docs and their families.

Once you get beyond the show’s homages, both to 1970s style and “Desperate Housewives,” this proves to be a groovy little summer soap opera.

As the last of my DVD screeners ended, and I found the story wrapped around me, constrictorlike, I had to agree with old Gus: It feels true. Very true.

After four seasons of showing us cosmetic enhancement from every conceivable angle, Nip/Tuck is ready to take its scalpel to something else: the entertainment industry. I’m not saying that it’s going to work or that Nip/Tuck's longtime fans will appreciate the gesture, but tonight’s episode introduces us to a show-within-a-show that is simply dreadful, and that alone (to this TV critic) is worth the price of admission.

Samantha Who? actually gets better as it goes along. There’s a lot of table-setting in this first episode, but I found myself enjoying a later episode, and Applegate is a big reason why.

Sharply written, compellingly acted, this is the crime procedural ABC has needed all along, one for the “Grey’s Anatomy” crowd.

It’s definitely not the same-old same-old, for which ABC is to be congratulated.

From what I can tell, it’s going to be the same show every show.

A lightly subversive sitcom set in modern-day Wisconsin.

While it is formulaic and slow-paced, Moonlight is stylish entertainment with a charming star aimed at a specific audience--the folks who stay home Friday night and watch CBS.

Like young Jaime, it's going to take awhile for this show to find its artificial legs.

A great first hour gets this comedic drama off to a fine start.

There’s no doubt Life is blessed with a fine lead actor, an intriguing premise and better writing than most new shows this fall. It’s just that viewers aren’t going to find that promising TV drama buried underneath all the crime procedural.

I was disappointed by the opening episode, which left me with the distinct impression that Taye Diggs (playing a newly divorced doctor in the practice) and Tim Daly (Walsh’s first love interest on the show, but I’m sure not the last) were simply working off their ABC contracts that began on other, now-canceled shows. The portrayals of alternative medicine were unfortunate and too much forced zaniness.

Reaper is remarkably well-paced and hilariously well-written.

The first hour’s writing, pacing and storylines were too pedestrian for me to recommend Cane.

The problem with reviving a time-travel show is there needs to be a really distinctive and appealing twist so that critics won’t just write things like, "This reminds me of "Quantum Leap.""

The results aren't much different from a video game, for the violence on Chuck is pretty cartoony, but after watching two episodes I’m hooked. This is a fun escapist show.

I didn't get much of a sense where this show was going from the pilot, though there was nothing to hate about Big Bang Theory, and the writing’s every bit as sharp as "Two and a Half Men" and "Dharma & Greg," comedies overseen by Big Bang producer Chuck Lorre.

Workplace comedies just bore me.

Since CBS doesn’t want us to see "Kid Nation" in advance, I guess I’ll just have to declare Kitchen Nightmares the best new reality show of the fall.

I hate it.

A truly baffling series about surfing, screwed-up families and miracles.

The effects-laden pilot of “Painkiller Jane” is certainly watchable.

“This American Life” on TV achieves the same contemplative mood as the radio show. And it has a striking spareness of imagery, much as “Life” on radio has a spareness of sound.

With all the crazy gags, pitch-perfect dialogue and a fresh hero at the center, it’s hard not to see “Andy Barker” as the spiritual successor to “Police Squad!”.

Goldblum has a commanding presence that may overcome the ho-hum storylines and overdone talking-ghost motif.

It’s like “Men in Trees” ... for men.

An example of the pay cable channel at its finest.

"The Riches" reminds me a bit of "Big Love" the first time I saw it. I wasn’t sure whether to like these people or despise them, whether I bought the premise or not. And yet, at the end of the hour, I wanted to see more.

A familiar mishmash of David Kelley formulaic elements.

It’s a hoot.

It feels like Haggis and Moresco are picking up right where “EZ Streets” left off.

As someone who’s on the fence about Silverman — I get what she’s doing, but I’m not sure it’s worth the adoration it often receives — I found myself chuckling more when I went through my notes on the first two shows than when I was watching them.

It’s not well-cast.... It’s not well-written.

You will regret tuning in even a minute late for the premiere.

Unfortunately, the first two hours of “Dirt” give no sense that anyone wants to make an entertaining satire out of all this.

A stinking pile of unlikely plot twists, brain-dead dialogue and cardboard characters.

"My Boys" suffers from an unrealistic setup, and too many scenes amount to five people sitting around talking.

After the nerve-jangling first episode, I predict you’ll be hooked.

A forgettable amalgam of "House", "CSI", and every hospital soap opera ever made.

Torchwood is so much more tricked-out with talent and visual wizardry, moves at such breakneck speed and makes such demands on its viewers that it leaves most American TV shows in its dust.

A good, potentially great, show.

A perfectly serviceable but utterly forgettable sitcom.

The first hour... hits you with a potent cocktail of action and intrigue.

I can’t say enough about how "Friday Night Lights" defied my expectations for what a TV show about football would be.

A mildly amusing sitcom that is promising -- including the sense that it promises to go nowhere fast.

What makes this intriguing and ultimately irresistible serial thriller one of my favorites of the fall season are its characters.

A gripping, one-of-a-kind drama.

Sleek, action-packed and heavy on the acting talent.

It’s a smart series with a pacing that sometimes takes your breath away. Still, once the action pauses, will viewers want to spend time with a bunch of amoral characters?

The punchlines fell flat more often than not.

If [Sorkin] intends to preach off-key sermons every week, “Studio 60” is going to get old fast.

Heche really shines in this role.

To me, what allows “The Wire” to surpass “The Sopranos” in the pantheon of greatest American TV shows is its ambition and its anger.

"'Til Death" seems a pretty thin concept.

I don’t get a kick out of you, “Happy Hour.”

I’m having a reverse case of Stockholm Syndrome with “Standoff”: The more time I spend with it, the less I like it.

[It] makes defense work look as sexy as anything on the high-tech "CSI."

The show teeters at times on incomprehensibility but is brought back each time by its two stars.

Hilarious, delightful and smart... "Eureka" may have the gumption to become the best sci-fi show since the late lamented “Farscape.”

It’s not near HBO quality but certainly better than that “Sleeper Cell” tripe that Showtime put on last year.

A goofy and likable new comedy.

The constant toing-and-froing of “Mrs. Harris” might have gotten tiresome, as an earlier HBO effort at revisionist biography, “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers,” did. Bening, though, is somehow able to conjure up a completely new mood for each time and setting.

It’s an ambitious and ever-shifting examination of the lack of foresight in a culture addicted to rapid change.

The one thing “Sleeper Cell” does commendably is to suggest that there is a struggle going on for the soul of Islam, and that al-Qaida does not have the only say in the matter. But that message is swamped by predictable thriller filler and cheap production values.

An out-of-the-gate triumph.

It’s a grim two hours... But it’s not overly explicit, and the script and talent are better than most Lifetime films.

Monday’s premiere was one of the most nearly perfect half-hours of television I’ve ever seen.... [But] I can’t imagine tuning in “The Colbert Report” four nights a week just to watch a caricature.