Still excellent, still hard to love.

It was... safe, reasonable, unembarrassing, uninspirational.

The show proceeds at gale force, demolishing logic, plot, meaning and (most of all) pleasure in its path.

Good-hearted and gentle, Fisher struggles on the "funny" front.

About a Boy yearns to be good. Yet it relishes being bad. And Katims--guiding hand to "Parenthood" and "Friday Night Lights"--doesn't fess up to that dichotomy.

Just about everything worked, and worked well, from the opening credits to the final ones. The energy and beauty of New York City was incorporated in a way that exceeded even my expectations--happily exceeded them. Meanwhile, The host: A bit nervous, understandably, he nonetheless reminded fans and people who have never heard of him why he's here.

Turgid dialogue obscures intriguing ideas, amid uneven echoes of civil rights and supremacist crusades.

There's pleasure in every frame here--from terrific new cast additions (Molly Parker, David Glennon) to richer D.C. subplots. It all works, and it is all addictive.

The most thought-provoking new series of the year on TV. [6 Oct 1999, p.B39]

If not all things to all people, this Oscar salute should be enough for most.

Calling Rome a crushing disappointment would be accurate but too forgiving of its sordidly cockamamy fixations. Brutality and nudity rise in direct proportion to unpersuasive storytelling. Finding someone, anyone, to care about amid all this shock-value Sturm und Drang swiftly becomes an enervating chore. [26 Aug 2005, p.B33]

Their [John Brownlow and co-writer Don Macpherson's] saga is so vividly shaded, even minor characters resonate.

Bloody pirate battles? Check. Graphic sex scenes? Check. Shoreside conniving/intrigue? Intense.

Lizzie Borden takes an ax to many assumptions--including the one that Lifetime movies aren't worth watching.

Kinnear is solid, but his Keegan is a work in progress--both as human being and TV character.

Nip/Tuck is all about appearances, but it also has something to say. [21 June 2004, p.C01]

There's no drama, no trumped-up conflict, no insights, no revelations and absolutely no discreet view of a once-notorious Dorchester clan that ran wild in the streets but now drives them, coolly surveying their kingdom for another restaurant location.

They know how to nail situations/characters, while snappy edits cull fluff, leaving only comic gold.

Murphy's concept in its basics is already beautiful. But he pushes the show to be a breathtaking knockout. Like some plastic surgery patients, Nip/Tuck initially gets such a pleasing result that it doesn't seem to know when to stop.

Looking occupies some fuzzy ill-defined middle ground filled with uni-dimensional characters.

The fuss is justified. Sunday's return of the Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss-created series is a triumphant one, and should easily establish Sherlock among TV's finest series.

The early part of the third may not be as good as the first season or stretches of the second, but for a few million anxiously awaiting Sunday, it's still good enough.

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.

The first two episodes prove as tiresomely pleased-with-themselves as my run-on sentences. A half-hour is too much of not enough.

Good newcomer that gets even better in the weeks ahead.

The oldest trope in the TV kingdom dies hard, and in fact dies not at all on Chicago PD, the latest from "Law & Order" creator Dick Wolf, who sleepwalks through this show, or at least doesn't bother to wake up long enough to rewrite any of the rules he's established over the past 30 years.

Will this be a good season? Undoubtedly, yes, and blood will be spilled. But if this opener is any indication, there's not enough fake blood in Hollywood to sate the fifth.

Lots of cartoon violence mixed with--irony alert--not enough intelligence.

The worst new show of 2014 can take solace that there are still 358 days left for another one to exceed it.

Slow start Sunday, but the drama's beauty and quality are intact.

About as good a Community restart as anyone could have possible hoped for.

The Assets isn't flashy, but boy, is it effective. It just grinds away, laying down intriguing details of "asset" care and feeding, made vivid through determined performances and intense crescendos.

A little long-winded in some stretches, not detailed enough in others but Holmes fans--and fans of cop procedurals--should like this.

"Johnny's" back to corrupt the locals, and if you liked last season, there's no apparent reason not to go along for this ride.

Dream On is almost there. It still needs some work, though. [6 July 1990, p.43]

Riveting, important and lots of fun.

Underwood, in the role of Maria, didn't entirely succeed--acting is part of the bargain, after all. But NBC's live version of Richard Rodgers' and Oscar Hammerstein's beloved musical, staged at Grumman Studios in Bethpage, largely did.

Bonnie & Clyde really is just another biopic with superior production values, a few good performances and a pair of protagonists who deserve no sympathy, and receive none here.

The pilot has some funny moments, but after that, Kirstie starts to flatline.

Glimmers of hope force their way through the fog of noir cliche.

Still good, still not for everyone, and almost gone for good.

Its tender moments register without feeling forced while the comedy comes in the form of a constant IV drip.

It's homage of the highest form, but comedy of the highest form, too. Cos quite obviously is far from finished.

The documentary cannily employs Goldberg's enthusiasm and some clever animations over Moms' audio routines to keep this lost legend's influence in the forefront.

Quiet, intelligent, worth checking out.

Lively pilot, with plenty of pop--but you've seen it all before.

[Bill Lawrence] scores again here, with an instantly appealing ensemble, from Astin's "soulless upstairs tool" to Rory Scovel as the downstairs dude from "a very competitive community college.

We already know too much and paradoxically too little about the JFK assassination. A TV movie needed to tell us something we don't know. No dice here.

Recycled theory with some fresh perspective--but it still smells recycled.

Besides the scenery, what's best here are the characters, and their lives--or unlives--of quiet desperation.

All dark shadows and gloom, there's a comic-book vigor to the series, and the narrative contortion of a soap.

Not a single minute seems superfluous. This is all-engrossing, and all-informative.

What's missing is passion, joy and (ultimately) interest.

Not that I think The CW has any grasp of the mental mojo that made its WB network predecessor such a pop-culture kick. Really? This twaddle? Every single week?

Excellent actors playing excellent actors--and largely succeeding.

Disgusting--but in a good way.

There's too much going on to tell what might ultimately stick, other than the contents of the Mallow Marsh.

Filmed in New Orleans, Coven wants to soak up some atmosphere, bowdlerize some local history and otherwise creep out viewers. At least on these three points, this season should easily score.

From "The Mod Squad" to "Being Human," TV's young misfits find it [family] where they can, and Tomorrow is that next step, too. Scripter Phil Klemmer wrote for "Chuck" and "Veronica Mars," good arguments for promise here (and "Undercovers," a bad one).

This show captures a distinct culture, and the people jockeying for places in it, trying to prove, mostly to themselves, that their lives have value. And so Friday Night Lights has more than almost any network show today. [5 Oct 2007, p.B33]

The starter hour picks up steam whenever loose-cannon Amick bops around--although Ormond does a nice job of grounding its shenanigans in a semblance of reality.

The strange alt-reality of Sean Saves the World, where a hundred bits of TV past--floating aimlessly in our memories--have coalesced into a cultural artifact that feels as antediluvian as a Walkman.

The Millers shows what a thing of glory hear-the-laughs sitcomedy can be in the hands of masters.

This feels like "funny" by focus group, one composed of cloistered network executives.

A not-bad spinoff that feels older than "The Vampire Diaries" and even more convoluted.

A competent, connect-the-dots procedural that never offers much of a case for why a remake was needed.

There's a glimmer of hope here, and her name is Rebel Wilson. Now, the show needs to match her talents.

The fatal attraction story line is a long windup to a punchline you already know, and promos have revealed it as well. The mystery element is plopped down in the middle of that particular story like a lead MacGuffin.

We've seen this show before, in fresher settings, with stronger comic structure --from, in fact, the same creators: Merchant and American "Office" writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky.

It's the tired guys will be guys trope dusted off for one of TV's pre-eminent comic actors, Tony Shalhoub, who can't even break through the smog of mediocrity that's enveloped him here.

Foremost, getting Brody off-screen turns out to be an inspired move. In his absence, there's a new world order, or disorder, with a lot of people left to assemble the pieces, including Saul, Carrie, and most of all, Dana.

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.

Get past the mawkishness (if you can) and there's a sweetness here, and geniality. The Michael J. Fox Show needs to be much more, but love is hard to shake.

You hope for a laugh, pray for one, then give up. To be fair, tonight's pilot runs fast (19 minutes) and feels more like a "sizzle reel" than a fully formed show. Williams, at least, is a genius, and maybe he'll get the time to turn this into something worth watching.

The cast throws this curveball that catches the plate for a strike.

Akerman has to be everything. Good thing she's a nimble actress.... Whitford is always winning, and even the poor exes find wiggle room inside their cliches.

Noisy, silly, occasionally obnoxious, sporadically funny and ultimately sweet.

Lucky 7 might offer more to like than authentic texture of place, race, personality and workplace emotions.

As with "The Avengers," Whedon's ear and sensibilities match the material perfectly.

The pilot's envelope-pushing is caustic and obvious, two things Mom seems better than. Faris is both gutsy and touching as the adult trying to get her act together, while Janney's crafty adolescence extends to a third generation around Faris' two kids.

Smart, intriguing thriller, but the opener is slightly overheated.

Spader seems to be the only one who actually gets the gameplay here.... And the script seems to incite his appetite.

ABC must be loco throwing Lopez to the critical wolves like this. [27 Mar 2002, p.B31]

Tonight's opening episode of The Guardian is as well-crafted as any of this fall's series pilots. The hour plays like a tidy little TV movie. And therein lies its potential problem. Where the series can go from here-go, that is, without losing credibility and the dramatic tensions that make it distinctive-is difficult to fathom. [25 Sept 2001, p.B27]

Human beings live on the corner, and "The Corner" makes us care about them. [16 Apr 2000, p.D15]

If the first two episodes are indicative of the kind of inspired lunacy these guys will produce over the next 20 weeks, the Kids may well be the successors to Monty Python, SNL and SCTV. [21 July 1989, p.5]

Yes, offensive, but the second episode loses that element, which suggests Fox got the message. Not surprisingly, it's the better of the two.

Easily one of fall's better new comedies, but don't expect to be blown away yet. The pilot offers just a taste of what's to come, which is plenty good enough.

Nothing scary here, but Hollow is fun enough, and promising enough, too.

It's hilarious, and sad, and ironic, and rich.

Mostly fascinating tales from all the presidents' men that occasionally need (sometimes badly) journalistic balance and perspective.

The acting is first-rate, and so is the writing, but the violence is appalling, and not just appalling, but creatively appalling.

Based on most of the first five episodes sent out for review, Boardwalk Empire easily establishes its claim as one of the three or four best dramas on TV.

All charisma and command, [Idris Elb] blasts through the screen in every shot while his performance is a constant reminder that the craft, at its best, is a gossamer of countless little details that add up to something magical.

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.

There's cheese (i.e., all Syfy flicks) and then there's cheese--Velveeta vs. Brie. But guess what? Ghost Shark is both! How victims die, which body parts are left and where, the perfectly predictable dialogue and straight-faced performances, even a historical nod to Roanoke--we're just not worthy of this much smartly executed satisfaction.

These guys are so bland and their together time so contrived, it's more fun to watch the gears turn on the tired docusoap machine.

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]