A masterful two-hour finale to an already exceptional program. [21 Oct 2004]

A scream, in the biting Britcom tradition of "Fawlty Towers" and the best depiction of middle management hell since Mike Judge's cult classic "Office Space." [23 Jan 2003]

What Simon is doing with "The Wire" - besides crafting arguably the most realistic cop show ever - is taking the narrative style of books and translating it to television. ... By itself, it raises TV's collective IQ at least a few points. [29 May 2003]

The acting, writing and directing are superb.

The six-episode first season of "The Office" was so dark, so wicked, so brilliant that it was hard to imagine Gervais and Merchant topping themselves. But they have. By slowly chipping away at David's power base, they've made him even more desperate, petulant and bullying. (The less funny David gets, the funnier the show is.) [10 Oct 2003]

The greatest dramatic series in the history of American television. [6 Mar 2005, p.1]

Atwood's spare narrative is haunting in the horrors it only hints at. The Hulu adaptation is 10 episodes (and judging from the gripping first three, hopefully there will be many more). The narrative is more fully fleshed out, and obviously more visceral, but it still leaves a lot to the imagination.

How Naz's religion (he's the American-born son of Pakistani immigrants) becomes a factor in the case is a natural part of the narrative but never feels like a polemic--The Night Of is too subtle for that. Its brilliance is in the way, thanks to the moody, unrushed direction and pointed, spare dialogue, everything feels freighted with meaning.

But what's amazing, maybe even revolutionary, about The Corner is this: as its narrative plays out in six laid-back, detail-packed, one-hour installments, you come to see that all the major characters don't belong in this place, in this life. [16 Apr 2000, p.1]

The show's ungimmicky and sociological fly-on-the-wall approach — you'd never guess Ryan Murphy of the outrageous "Glee" and "American Horror Story" is the man behind the curtain — is particularly effective, perhaps because the events were so outrageous on their own.

AMC’s "Breaking Bad" [is] still the best drama you’re not watching.

In a season overstuffed with crime dramas, Boomtown is one of the two or three best, alongside CBS' "Without a Trace" and "Robbery Homicide Division." It has complex, compelling characters, a terrific cast of actors and a beautiful feature film look. But it would have all those things even if the stories were told in strict chronological order. [27 Sept 2002, p.53]

If you enjoy seeing wealthy, petty people get their deserved comeuppance, this is the show for you. If you enjoy laughing, this is definitely the show for you - the funniest new comedy of the season by a wide margin...For a show about dumb, unfocused people, Arrested Development is wickedly smart and quick, willing to go anywhere for a good gag. [31 Oct 2003, p.49]

Season six... starts off strong and only gets stronger - profane, offensive, cringe-inducing and hilarious. [5 Sep 2007]

The fifth and final season may be the most overtly farcical, but only because things in this slightly fictionalized Baltimore have become, if you can imagine, worse than ever.

And then, near the end of the premiere, something happened that put a dull ache in the pit of my stomach. I won't spoil it here - henceforth, it'll be referred to as The Bad Thing - but it seemed so tonally wrong, so in violation of everything that made the show and the particular characters involved so great, that I knew - I knew - this had been imposed on the production team by the suits at NBC. [5 Oct 2007, p.55]

It's an absurdist comedy about criminal behavior and suburban life that gently mocks its targets while taking its characters and their emotions seriously. [9 Jan 1999, p.23]

This is a smart, exciting thrill ride with a tick-tock momentum that will keep you glued to the edge of your seat. [6 Nov 2001]

"Curb" never presents itself as anything but a cleverly plotted, deliberately offensive comedy. But it's more than a comedy: It's a comedy of manners, or bad manners; delightfully rude, and, in its unreal way, honest. [3 Jan 2004]

"Extras" finally achieves the greatness expected of the Gervais/Merchant team with Season Two.

Treme may lack the obvious narrative engine that the cops vs. drug dealers narrative gave "The Wire," but it's already a smart, engaging, moving and funny series, one that in many ways is more accessible than its predecessor.

The funniest new comedy in several seasons. ... "Malcolm in the Middle" is as fast and strange as any cartoon but occasionally has a depth you can't find without flesh-and-blood actors. [7 Jan 2000]

The Lost season three finale was no fluke. The show has got its mojo back, and then some.

The hour offers up office intrigue, romantic complications and a classic Don Draper pitch, not to mention the usual brilliant acting from all involved.

Felicity is very clearly targeted at the Clearasil set that worships at the altar of the WB's "Dawson's Creek," but if the show can maintain the charm and poignancy of the pilot, adults may also want to pay homage to television's newest star. [29 Sept 1998, p.47]

NBC's half-hour slice of small-town life isn't perfect right out of the gate; few shows are. But it's so sure-footed and engaging that it would be a pleasure to see how it turns out. [7 Oct 2000, p.43]

There's definitely a joy to this series, no matter how dire things get for its characters.

True Detective keeps you on your toes, and will keep you glued to the screen.

Some episodes and moments have such undeniable dramatic power that you may weep; others may just leave you scratching your head. [9 Sept 2001, p.1]

There’s no performance quite on par with Damian Lewis’s star turn as the quiet, decent company leader in "Band," but the three leads all take advantage of their showcase roles to craft characters that transcend both war movie cliches and the actors’ own mixed backgrounds.

Now that Sutter and company have finished the long and difficult task of fixing what wasn't working, I want to know everything it has to offer--even if some of those things may give me nightmares.

Though I enjoyed NBC’s pilot for Community a little bit more, "Modern Family" has as assured and entertaining a start as you could hope for.

It's the best-looking pilot of the season--maybe the best new show, period--even though it may not look that good in the future.

The phrase "stream-of- consciousness" doesn't do it justice. Geyser-of-consciousness is more like it. What holds it together is the program's unique comic voice. [12 Sep 1997]

Because Dexter's victims are always so evil, we're inclined to root for him, but moments like that--or one in where Dexter admits he doesn't really care about saving innocents, just scratching his itch to kill--gives the show more moral complexity than you would expect, and it's the better for that.

For fans of the original movie, there are a number of callbacks to savor.... We're looking forward plenty of long, cold winters.

Apatow despises formula. If he didn't, "Freaks and Geeks" might still be on the air, and while Undeclared isn't nearly as pessimistic or painful, it's just as observant - and, at times, even funnier...All I know is that re-watching the first few "Undeclared" episodes in preparation for this review gave me my first good, hearty laughs since Sept. 11. By taking the "Freaks and Geeks" formula and making it shorter, sweeter and mostly wince-free, Apatow has created a great new comedy that could become a major hit, even if Steven himself never gets around to picking a major. [25 Sept 2001, p.23]

The storytelling itself is agile, even with frequent digressions into the finer points of sociophysical architecture and the pitfalls of "nebulous public areas."

Chiklis always sells his end of it, and when he has a great actor opposite him, you don't really notice how puzzling the story arcs would get.

Outside of McGee, the new season suggests that Rescue Me has gone as far as it can go as a comedy/drama hybrid. Almost all of the best scenes are the funny ones - or the ones that start dark, then turn funny, like Tommy brainstorming with Mike (Mike Lombardi) on the best way to euthanize his ailing mother.[12 June 2007, p.41]

The premiere episode is riveting--the best pilot I've seen this fall. (That admittedly is not saying much.)

It is slow, and it requires work and careful observation, but when it achieves its breakthroughs, the effects can be as extraordinary and dynamic as any other drama on television.

This is the most uncompromising and stylistically innovative approach to TV drama since "NYPD Blue" maybe since "Hill Street Blues" 20 years ago. [30 March 2000, p.57]

A penetrating, demanding examination of race, faith, the pitfalls of self-righteousness and limits of parental love.

This is uncomfortable television about uncomfortable topics. And we could use more of it.... This way of constantly upending the viewers' own preconceptions saves the show when it seems a bit too preachy and on-the-nose. Television too often gets teenagers wrong--too perfect, too whiny, or too bratty--but the young actors here offer nuanced portrayals.

Even if you are familiar with the contours of the controversy over Scientology, Gibney's documentary, which won raves at Sundance in January and airs Sunday at 8 p.m. on HBO, is worth watching, particularly for the personal stories of former members.

You have to work to watch this show. Characters and plotlines whiz by in a blur, and if you blink, you may miss an entire subplot. But the payoff is more than worth the effort: With its deep characterizations, dark humor, unpredictable plots and brilliant musical score, "EZ Streets" is fascinating television, unlike almost anything else now on the air. [27 Oct 1996]

At a time when every TV comedy seems content to look and sound like every other TV comedy, any show that tries to break the mold deserves to be applauded. And a show like Sports Night that's snappy, well written, thought-provoking, and sometimes funny and moving at the same time deserves no less than a standing ovation. [22 Sept 1998, p.59]

It's at once a simple, R-rated office comedy about a bunch of people who would have nothing to do with each other if they didn't work together, and a pretty wicked satire of the quest for fame at all costs.

Fey's parts of the premiere are terrific, and next week's episode is an even better--and sillier--showcase for her.

With this cast, and the writing of Fresco and company, I expect Ted season two to again hit the heights of that first season. But these two episodes are a reminder of how hard it is to pull that off.

The documentary finally sags a bit in the final hour, albeit inevitably, as Jones and Timlett detail the making of the group’s final film, "Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life," by which point all six men were quite ready to be done with each other for a while, and then as we briefly glimpse them in their post-Python lives.

The writing is sharp, and laughs are both low (Ehrlich commissions a Latino graffiti artist for a street-cool logo that turns out to be incredibly, hilariously vulgar) and high (in the same episode, Ehrlich's repeated attempts to avoid coming off as racist come off as racist).

By reattaching his misery to 9/11, and by reminding us that everyone around him still shares in the miseries of that day, Rescue Me has lit a new fire under both the man and his show.

A show this whimsical needs a few anchors to avoid floating away altogether. Emerson is one, and the hands-off Ned and Chuck romance is the other.

A relentless, ambitious perpetual motion machine that may go down as the most exciting thriller in TV history. [27 Oct 2002]

The premiere doesn't necessarily have the sort of mythical, spine-tingling moments that the first season provided from time to time, but the acting remains strong (particularly by Chandler and Britton, the First Couple of primetime) and it feels like an episode of Friday Night Lights in a way that very little of season two did.

[Legion is] produced like a cerebral art house version of a superhero series, thrumming with precision and emotion where the genre usually calls for shock and awe, and assembled with an entrancing period aesthetic (it seems to be set in the early 1970s, but that could just be a side-effect of David's fragile mental state) and stunning, occasionally horrifying visual effects.

Delightful. [8 Nov 2001, p.45]

It has so much going for it on paper -- notably Mary-Louise Parker as a pot-dealing soccer mom -- but the series' creators remain so pleased with themselves that they're rarely as funny as they obviously think they are. [13 Aug 2007]

The CW's Reaper and NBC's "Chuck," the two shows featuring the aforementioned Sam and, um, Chuck, are an unusual pairing in that they're not only both good--with ABC's "Pushing Daisies," they're the best new shows of the season.

A sumptuous, stately but never dull look inside the life of Queen Elizabeth (Claire Foy).

This is not the candy-coated girl power of CBS's freshman series "Supergirl," which is doing something very different (and doing it very effectively). Jessica Jones is more psychologically complex, acknowledging how painful it can be to flee, to be free--even when you have an iron fist.

Those three performances are so good that they lift up everyone around them, whether it's Combs (best whenever he has Rashad or McDonald to spar with) or John Stamos, surprisingly subtle in what could be a thankless role as the white man who doesn't want the Youngers moving into his neighborhood.

The "Seinfeld" plot doesn't kick off until the season's third episode. The first two, meanwhile, are a reminder of what a brilliant show, and a deep cast of characters, Larry has built ever since he said goodbye to Jerry and company.

Though it rushes a bit through its final episode, Torchwood: Children of Earth is big in a way that very little of TV aspires to anymore. Until we see what kind of late charge "Mad Men" will have when it returns in mid-August, this is the most exciting television of the summer.

Nothing short of a TV miracle: a family show that's sweet, but not too syrupy, bitingly funny, but not mean-spirited and fun for viewers of all ages, without appealing to the blandest common denominator. [5 Oct 2000, p.37]

Toward the end of the second episode, two characters who have no business acting chummy with each other get in the back of a car together and do exactly that. And rather than make me eager to pop in my screener of the third episode (which I did, eventually), it just killed all the buzz I had built up to that point.

The funniest and most romantic new show this fall. [24 Sept 1997, p.31]

The Leftovers shifts locations, expands its cast of characters, delivers new soul-shaking twists and drills more deeply into its theme of spiritual vertigo. This season, it's less about loss itself than how to fill the chasm. It's breathtaking.

The most stylistically innovative comedy to hit American television since HBO's great, barely seen "The Larry Sanders Show" ... It's also the most squirm-inducing look at everyday deceit that I've seen outside of an Albert Brooks or Woody Allen movie. [14 Oct 2000]

The pilot, in which Yost liberally borrows Leonard’s trademark lean dialogue from "Fire in the Hole," has a swagger to it, and also a sly sense of humor....Without Leonard’s writing to directly adapt, the later episodes are a mixed bag.

If the world that Simon, Burns, Wright and company drop us into can be confusing at first (mirroring, as they intended, the confusion that Wright felt at the time), it's a fully-realized one that's both thousands of miles away (literally and figuratively) from the Baltimore of "The Wire" and one that will feel very familiar to anyone who spent a lot of time watching McNulty and Bunk drink at the train tracks.

The sheer amount of cussing is so great that even the unoffended may be too distracted by it to pay attention to anything else in Deadwood. That would be unfortunate, because lurking just behind the wall of profanity is a magnificent, fire-breathing work of art - an amazing meditation on violence, social order and the cruel reality of the Wild West. [21 Mar 2004, p.1]

Whedon tries to blend comedy, horror and action, a very combustible mixture - as evidenced by the wildly uneven "Buffy" movie - but he seems close to perfecting the formula here. [10 Mar 1997, p.31]

With the start of season two, it looks like the expectations might finally meet the reality--or however real a show with aliens and time travel can get.

The biggest rap against Hollywood dramatizations is that they treat history as a series of white-hot personality conflicts when it's really about slowly building waves of collective action. "From the Earth to the Moon" is a rare exception. There are recurring characters and motifs, but none that appear in every episode, and the writers have resisted inventing an audience surrogate to guide us through the maze. [5 Apr 1998]

And as the new season begins, it becomes clear that gags are easier to write in abundance than gag lyrics. The non-melodic portions of the show are still a scream.

Better Things is one of the messiest portrayals of motherhood on television today--which pretty much makes it the most real.

The series tells hard, funny truths about marriage and parenting that often escape notice in other stories - truths which suggest that writer-creator-producer Marc Cherry and his collaborators have actually taken the time to understand the people they're satirizing. [2 Oct 2004]

This is the best network comedy of the season (yes, that's a caveat), with its deceptively easy balance of heart and snark.

The humor provided by the new setting makes the show a bit more palatable than it was last season, but Nip/Tuck is still Nip/Tuck, for both good and ill.

Whether Tara is herself or someone else (including a new alter), "Tara" works as both a character drama and an absurdist family comedy because the characters are so well-drawn, and because what happened before isn't forgotten as the show moves forward.

Horne and Page have sweet chemistry, but what makes the show work is the cast of eccentrics that Corden and Jones have created around them.

Last year's body count also makes some of this year's deaths feel routine; I spent a good chunk of the early episodes figuring out which characters had lived just a little too long, if you know what I mean.

The first two ABC episodes of Scrubs, premiering back-to-back tomorrow night, more closely resemble the series in its marvelous early seasons, and suggest that Braff's victory lap will be a memorable one.

The performances by the three lead actresses (and by Amanda Seyfried as Paxton and Tripplehorn's eldest daughter) are so strong, and the nuances of life in such a complicated relationship so endlessly fascinating, that I'll suffer through the rest for a few episodes at a time before Bill's unsettling stare or Roman's calm, criminal sense of entitlement chases me off again.

The only real sin of "Joan" so far is the presence of Joe Mantegna as Joan's police chief father. Mantegna, as always, is great, but his presence in what should be a small role apparently freaked out someone at CBS. So Hall tries to give him more to do by devoting a good chunk of each episode to unrelated crime stories - very mediocre ones, at that. [26 Sept 2003, p.57]

The four lead characters don't come off as deliberately, purposefully awful. In fact, they're so likable that their self-sabotaging almost adds to their charms. You're rooting for everyone, even when they're at cross-purposes.

I've seen five Archer episodes--and laughed frequently and loudly at all five.

How will Better Call Saul play for those unfamiliar with "Breaking Bad"? It still works, provided they're content with Gilligan's trademark loopiness and the show's leisurely (but confident) pace.

Though there isn't anything appreciably wrong with the third season, it's hard to fight the feeling that maybe Dexter is a concept that has reached its expiration date.

There are moments when John Adams stirs up the passion its author clearly had for the subject -- Adams firing off a rifle in the middle of a battle at sea with a British warship, the first public reading of the Declaration, George Washington (David Morse, in the second-best piece of casting other than Giamatti) whispering his oath of office at his inauguration -- but too often it's just as muddy and dull as its subject was accused of being.

While at times it feels like a bleak HerskoZwick drama--"Fortysomething Going on Fiftysomething"--the stories are leavened with humor, and the chemistry between the leads, and their fine performances.

For the most part, it's an eye-opening look at the business of show, with a lot of Hollywood color throughout. [29 Nov 2001, p.57]

If you can get past the blatant attempts to sell an ABC News production to fans of ABC dramas--prepare yourself for a lot of going-into-commercial cliffhangers where the surgical patients don't seem to be waking up--Hopkins is a rewarding, and often surprising, experience.

I've seen both of tomorrow's episodes, as well as next week's, and I loved every minute. But I'm also a geek who read Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov growing up.

The first episode starts out whimsical and veers into freakish by the end, but I'm already invested in seeing where it goes from there.