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.