Remarkable film.... Based on a look at the first two episodes, this particularly well-produced film insists that even in death, Kalief Browder can still change a broken system--and must.

The show is sweet, gentle, sad around the edges. I really love it. [19 Sep 1991]

But my ultimate test for any comedy is - what else? - "Does it make me laugh?" Arrested Development seldom does. Not loudly, anyway...It has neither the liberating audacity of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" nor the delirious, anything-for-a-laugh energy of NBC's "Scrubs," the two contemporary comedies that consistently crack me up. It's reminiscent of the taboo- breaking 1970s comedy serial "Soap," but drier, more deadpan, and with less endearing characters. Does it deserve a wider audience than it has gotten? Sure. But I can't imagine it becoming a mainstream hit for Fox like "The Simpsons" or "Malcolm in the Middle."

It's a great show, the best new series of the year. It's so - dare I say it? - original. It catches you off guard. Basically, it's everything I'm always looking for in drama. It's beautifully written, authentic, without the plastic Los Angeles look. The acting is marvelous. It's funny in a darkly comedic way, involving as a soap opera, and quirky. I never quite know what's going to happen, even though the subject matter is by no means unprecedented for television. [10 Jan 1999, p.D35]

There are a whole lot of ideas here--a few thrown against the wall to see if they'll stick--but the real pleasure of this four-hour head trip are the performances. Lyonne is outstanding.

The writing is crisp, the performances nuanced and believable, the gradually quickening pace addictive. It's hard to imagine anyone who watches tonight's first episode not wanting to to see the second installment next week. [6 Nov 2001]

Hilarious, as always, and unexpectedly, maybe an instructional guide to the current political landscape.

This is far more than a generous compilation but a two-hour fast-cut that attempts to reassemble a fractured mind from its own filings.

One Day at a Time doesn’t make us laugh so much as let us laugh. Not to say there aren’t some sitcom-y jokes, but they tend to feel real. ... Engaging cast, smart writing, laugh-out-loud execution.

This is a spectacular new series, with some stunning performances--Pierce, Peters, Zahn, in particular--and gorgeous music.

Besides the fine acting, writing and an attention to period detail that borders on the obsessive, what makes this show so ambiguous and pleasantly iridescent is narrative tension

Fine import with not just one, but three emotional payoffs.

A wildly funny family sitcom. ... I am in love with all of them after the first half hour. [5 Jan 2000]

Terrific start to the 6th.

The precision of "Saul's" craftsmanship--writing, direction, acting, and all the way down to craft services, for all I know--makes this the best series on TV. And there really is no contest.

Funny, melancholy, flawless.

While a deeply moving tribute to those we have lately come to call "heroes," this proves they've been heroes all along. (It was filmed before the pandemic.) A can't-miss beauty.

Based on the first two episodes, Saul is making a case that it could be even better than “Breaking Bad” (and do brush up on your Bible stories).

A joyful, wild, hilarious, insane — and darker — romp through the debasement of running for political office, as only "Veep" could imagine.

We want to know what happens to Helly and Mark — all four of them. We care about the others along with their "outie" doubles. And goats aside, the abiding mystery still hints at something consequential. Perhaps "Severance" will get around to a genuinely profound insight into our own fraught life and times. Perhaps. If only this second season weren't so self-serious about the whole process.

This stuff is good. No, superb.

Mad Men, as ever, remains a solid and beautifully produced TV program. Best of all, this episode promises a compelling third season. Fans will find much to savor.

One of the genuine pleasures of the small screen returns, better than ever.

Felicity is the best drama of the year, a quality show of substance and intelligence, something worth watching. [28 Sept 1998, p.B23]

Barry gets better this season--a whole lot better.

Yes, The Good Place is strange--also ridiculously inventive, silly, smart and strangely, unexpectedly deep.

Originally a half-hour sitcom, redeveloped into a light hour, this latter-day "Northern Exposure" creates its own eccentric, cantankerous, sweet and silly world. Can this wacky enchantment last? [6 Oct 2000, p.B51]

Quirky, funny, smart, wonderful acting, surprise cameos by cherished actors (Steve Harris, "The Practice"), and a one-two punch by Chandler and Britton that is unbeatable. What's not to love?

Whip-smart and skintight, Season 2 clicks like clockwork. You’re appalled, you’re LOL, you can’t wait to see next week.

This is a thinking viewers' show, filled with plump, meaty ideas — just not too plump or meaty.

Extremely funny and extremely raunchy (consider yourself warned), but Dunham's a major talent.

The first season was initially hagiography masking as a high-end TV series, but the second season is Vanity Fair, full of characters, life, humor, passion and buttered scones. Morgan not only has a series to match his 2006 Oscar-winning movie, “The Queen,” but finally one to exceed it. The Crown--the second season, anyway--is magnificent.

As with his earlier shows, "Hopkins 24/7" (2000) and "Hopkins" (2008), Wrong has structured these stories masterfully. Nothing seems wasted, nothing is superfluous. As a result, the hugely important work these people do is honored in every shot.

A beauty finally returns, and the beauty very much remains.

Like a packed piñata of absurdity, each episode rains unforeseen treats, from physical pranks to existential banter to all manner of sexual exuberance. It’s all smartly visualized around town and briskly stitched together.

The real pleasure of this series is watching them peel away the layers to this particular onion, often on long car drives across a vast, wet, undifferentiated Louisiana landscape.... The real problem with True Detective are those flash-forwards to the present day: Younger Cohle, at least, is interesting. The older version is gaseous and his maunderings often stop the show cold.

If all this seems heavy and difficult, then so be it. “Ramy” is also moving and smart and genuine. The trade-off seems reasonable to me.

Band of Brothers thus finds itself in a tricky no- man's land. It's too colloquial and too specific to be valuable in a larger historical sense, like the classic "World at War" series or any of the World War II documentaries that are a History Channel staple. Yet, it's too lacking in dramatic focal points to succeed fully as entertainment like "Private Ryan" or any of the dozens of World War II movies ("Battle Cry," "Battleground") that Hollywood turned out in the late 1940s and '50s. [7 Sept 2001, p.B02]

Based on the first six episodes of the 4th season, OITNB remains fresh, funny/sad, smart, inventive, well-written, and particularly well-acted.

A beauty to behold but an ice cube to hold, this Howards End never quite thaws.

Fun, wild start to the fourth season--and that's just Kalinda's story.

This second season is packed, but without getting too far into spoiler territory, fans can be assured that what's here feels exactly right.

From this, you will gain a keen understanding of what lies beneath those endless rows of markers at any military cemetery. This is an honest and often magnificent tribute to the 1st Marine Division.

A sentimental close to this journey with excellent performances and — best of all — Milch's incomparable language.

Tough to watch, but an effective — and often powerful — indictment.

An enthralling film.

A great concept, mostly divorced from reality, with superb execution, just might extend forever.

Wolf Hall really is one of the great pleasures of the small screen this year, even if it doesn't initially make much of an effort (like Cromwell) to curry your favor. But stick with this one. The rewards are considerable.

Grim, sometimes grinding, but Jackson still wows.

Coel's a great talent — no doubt about that — but this can be an aggravating, unfocused sprawl at times. The power and horror of Arabella's ordeal is the unintended casualty.

Modern Family is good. Better than good. Really good. O'Neil--dry and wonderful as ever--and Vergara (considerably less dry) are a winning combination.

As twisted, and twistedly funny, as ever.

Lavisly illustrated with archival footage, much of it rare, The March makes it almost easy to forget that words--not to mention the one man who said them--were the real stars that day.... Excellent, exhaustive.

Yes, there are two big stories this season, but the one about Thatcher — Anderson, like Corrin, is brilliant, by the way — doesn't stand a chance opposite the other. Charles and Diana: Tragic characters straight out of Shakespeare, one whose blood runs cold, the other whose "passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love," to steal a line from another play. ... Best season yet.

On top of the stars' subtlety and Fuller's verbal wit, Sonnenfeld's pilot direction ladles layers of flashy frosting--theatrical camera angles, emphatic zooms, intensified color and those heavyhanded moments when the narration can't quite straddle the sap line.

Richly documented, but tends to become long-winded--or just plain winded--by the end.

The most intriguing thing, actually, is that Lost may not even need the hoodoo voodoo. Abrams and script creator Damon Lindelof ("Crossing Jordan") have already set up a pretty compelling cross- section of earthlings as a study of simply human behavior. [19 Sept 2004, p.11]

Yet, for all its jam-packed insanity, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend can be one of the tube’s most perceptive and moving shows.

Humor is also key in the capacious pilot hour directed by John Madden ("Shakespeare in Love"). Subsequent episodes echo its deft balance of epic scope and whimsical humanity.

Funny, smart, entertaining, excellent acting and writing. What's not to like?

Another fine Hawke performance — and entertaining series — but the character he's created never quite gets a backstory, at least over the first five episodes.

First-rate and must-watch.

It all remains hilarious and mad. One of TV’s funniest shows, and gifted stars, returns.

The film's essential weirdness felt real. The TV series' weirdness is more often just comical (or disgusting. One word: Spiders.)

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has still got it. Kimmy mixes it up with #MeToo, with stellar results.

Cumberbatch and star British producers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss ("Doctor Who") have performed quite a remarkable feat here--they've created something unique and pleasurable where so many have trod before.

Mostly entertaining late-summer thrill ride, decent horror too.

The huge cast is excellent. ... There’s no driving narrative until at least the fifth episode. That’s an awfully long time to wait for something big to happen in an eight-episode season. At least The Deuce makes a case that it’s worth the wait.

The best parts of Show Me a Hero are the sharply drawn mini-portraits of people who will ultimately move into the new public housing. Spread throughout the first five hours, you hope you will find a hero there, but in vain. They're just normal people looking for a better life, and ultimately find one.

Tonight's episode is superb, and barrels--relentlessly--toward the answers.

The second season of Saul establishes what should have been obvious all along--this is basically just a continuation of “Breaking Bad.” Same themes. Same setting. Same preoccupations. Even same humor. But best of all, same deep, abiding intelligence.

Africa convincingly, emphatically, establishes that you ain't seen nothing yet.

It's extraordinarily familiar territory, as well-trod as any moment of pop cultural history. And yet "The Beatles Anthology" still feels as fresh and as relevant as ever today in the way it presents the dizzying whirlwind of this sort of fame from the front lines.

Yes, "Deadwood" was incomprehensible last season. It is incomprehensible this season. Fans will be delighted.

Beautifully done, but ultimately overdone. The book is better.

The Shield (this season and every season) is an intoxicating head-gamer of a show that grabs you by the throat.

The hype is justified. Nashville's terrific.

Hall is still doing something extraordinary here. Better yet, something original.

Of course there are dozens of loose ends in need of tying, but you do get the sense that some will actually get tied, and in a satisfying way.

"Unorthodox" is an achievement of searing power and grace, attuned to big, sweeping emotions and small, observational moments in equal measure. ... This is one of the major achievements in the history of Netflix original productions. You cannot miss it.

Watching “Shōgun" is a you-are-there-you-are-not-there experience — both bracing and chilly, not consistently engaging yet (paradoxically) always engaging, “Shōgun" draws you in, but never quite makes you feel welcome to be there.

The Jamie and Claire show moves to Paris--and in a sense, Frank and Jack do as well. A nice change of locale, and tone.

There’s a sense that we’ve traveled down this road paved with silicon once or twice before, but the ride is still smart, engaging and highly informative.

Nesbitt forcibly conveys the sense of a man who can't stop moving, even to sleep, until he finds his son. At least in the first hour--sorry, the only one I sampled--this feels like the kind of performance that just bought Starz a winner.

A beauty that will mostly make you laugh and, of course, cry.

Much grimmer, grayer and (gasp) dowdier. Still mostly wonderful.

The cast succeeds, and in the end, so does Heart.

The Affair might be an exercise in literary gamesmanship if the acting and writing weren't so strong, or the setting so evocative.... Engrossing.

Maisel doubles down on what it did best in the first season, and feels richer (and funnier) for the effort.

This still very much feels like a journey worth taking if only because--in the process--Hamm deftly continues to locate some heroic facet in TV's reigning anti-hero.

It's just super, a triumph of programme-making that even Alistair Cooke himself with his famous British overstatement can't exaggerate. [28 Mar 1991]

Byrne is brilliant and--for the most part--so is this fine and absorbing show.

No, this isn't your father's (or mother's) "Watchmen," but something new, occasionally thrilling too. Just not consistently so.

Riveting, important and lots of fun.

This is often a stirring and deeply felt portrait of people in an extended state of crisis.

Like the first season, there’s a “Crash”-like flavor to the storytelling, but it feels more organic this time around.... Excellent, all around.

What sets “Of Mics and Men” apart from the usual music documentary is how it goes out of its way to show the context that inspired Wu-Tang Clan’s music.

It's what we do with our character that matters. This season— magnificently—reveals what Elizabeth has done with her's. You will be blown away. At least I was.