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.

This remains a superior TV drama.

The show's core relationship is appealingly relaxed. It dares to suggest successful coupledom lies less in heated passion than in being able to dress down and screw up and know you're still loved.

Beautiful, immersive and joyless, Tale can be tough to watch, but “rewarding” trumps “tough.”

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.

A winner and best of all, fun.

If you loved last season, there's nothing so far to indicate you won't like the second just as much.

Browncoats Unite keeps the focus on the work itself. And that's what keeps "Firefly" afloat.

Sunday's episode is exceptional, marred only in a few spots by padding that's inevitable with these supersized episodes.

In the three episodes Comedy Central offered for review, most of the sketches work, some don't. But the best of the lot is next week.... just might be that breakout season.

For fans of The Leftovers, the third season looks like the best yet. It’s funny, horrifying, strange and baffling.

The Red Road demands patience, but from what I've seen, it strongly suggests that will be rewarded.

The Slap is a chance, and a worthy one, too.

The real le Carré unreels here, with savvy updates (re-gendering the book’s male spy boss) strengthening his nail-biting storytelling and ever keen focus on the toxic bureaucracy behind even the most opulent intrigue.

A particularly fine new FX drama marred only by a tepid pace in the pilot. But pace and story pick up in subsequent episodes.

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.

Fans will be happy, but you newbies have been warned--the vulgarity will blow your hair back, or right off.

Unforgettable was on no one's list as one of the "buzzier" fall pilots, but that doesn't mean it's not one of the better ones. It is.

Crisis ultimately gets its priorities straight by giving viewers a reason to care--about the characters, outcome and mystery.

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

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

Finding Carter isn't some teen show. It's a stellar drama.

Morals is raw, interesting, intelligent, sometimes funny (sometimes not), violent (but not overly violent) and unlike anything on TV at the moment.

With two shopping trips in each half-hour, TLC's latest hit is so fast-paced--and such giddy consumerism--that it's fairly irresistible. Also educational.

It's not a bit hokey, as are many reality show competitions. Unlike "ANTM," the coaches don't judge. Instead, they leave that to industry experts who are authentic: smart, tough and unemotional.

I mostly loved Game of Thrones, but occasionally grew a little weary of it as well. (And just to answer the obvious question, this is not a small-screen "Lord of the Rings.")

The series actually improves on the movie. This is consistently funnier, weirder and more inventive.

Can a bad person become a good president? The answer may be self-evident--or maybe not. Nevertheless, therein lies a compelling new season. We may still have a lot more to learn about Frank Underwood after all.

Fascinating documentary--and extremely effective commercial.

A gorgeous production, though the story sometimes keeps it on the tarmac.

The series never quite convincingly establishes what could have been a powerful undercurrent-- whether Naz and by association the rest of New York’s Muslim community had been tried and convicted based on their Muslim faith alone. That’s OK. Everything else--and everyone else--cclicks just about perfectly.

Still smart, still good, still fun, Human Target remains one of TV's best comic books.

She’s a terrific and effortlessly funny actress who establishes vivid characters with vivid lives. But Sam Fox obviously required a bigger reach, and Adlon accomplishes that here.

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

Complaining about the show's pre-fab structure is like shootin' fish in a barrel--no point to ask what's-the-point, no fair to ponder whether it's fair, because you end up with dinner anyhow, and folks gonna gobble it. Duck Dynasty is tasty enough.

Community can be fresh, funny, smart and extremely aware of its own cleverness; it also can be terrifically odd--odd good, or odd bad, or sometimes odd-good-bad-strange all at once.

What worked especially well last season also gets better in the second.

GLOW is terrific. ... GLOW is about female empowerment, and couldn’t be otherwise, but there’s a little more going on--female relationships, and the unique ties that bind, even when frayed by a patriarchy that profits from fraying them.

Still excellent, still hard to love.

Garcia's single-camera editing amplifies the comedy inherent, rather than being a crutch to create it. And the casting here is as good as "Earl," which is saying something--even if Leachman goes a bit off the rails as wacked-out "mamaw."

Amid all those speeches, there's beauty, passion, heart and brains in The Newsroom. There's also humor, even more than ever in Sunday's opener.

Good, crackling start that--as the old saying goes--changes everything and may even point to the end.

Yup, the story can be downbeat, the pace at times languid. But this is a show with a brain and a heart.

It's like "M*A*S*H" with just the helicopters showing up and no laughs. "E.R." is all trauma; you never get to know enough about the patients or get involved with them. It's just treat, release and move on. [18 Sep 1994]

[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.

Still defiantly Community, still good and still uninterested in adding new viewers.

Black Box creates compelling people while smartly pondering identity, relationships, connection--it doesn't need the amped-up atmosphere.

The complex impact of the crime--and of its investigation, news coverage and town reaction--is the real story here, laid out in the decidedly ordinary faces and raw silent spaces that British drama delivers so well.

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

Strong personalities evoke the hold of the old, the tug of the new, and that intersection's human fireworks.

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.

With [Mike O'Malley's] fluid scripts, these sharp actors hit not just three-pointers but also free throws.

Pleasurable, amusing, well conceived and written, though perhaps just a little shy on character development (New York excepted). Give this one time - these guys feel like they're worth getting to know, and the show as well.

This is a singular vision throughout, written and directed by the team of Lodge Kerrigan and Amy Seimetz. (She also plays Christine’s older sister.) Their intense focus draws a disquieting portrait of a peculiar personality.

The characters in "Hope" are slightly more interesting [than those in "ER"]. Even though they are working in a high-powered hospital and have God-like powers, you can see what's going on behind their masks beyond their eyes. [18 Sep 1994]

[A] strongly acted thriller, which seems to add another intense dimension weekly.

Monday Mornings is Kelleyesque in all the best and admittedly worst--melodramatic, manipulative, shocking--ways. But it's also intelligent, particularly well-written and acted, and above all interested in matters other than what's directly mounted on the screen before your eyes, most notably ethics, human nature and human fallibility.

[These women make] instant impact, of course, with their stories but also through sheer personality.

There's humor, there's heart, you'll laugh when you don't expect to.

The results so far are very (very) funny.

Parks and Rec remains funny, sharp and inventive.

If you loved it before, you'll love it again. "Auf"-ully good.

All the Way gets a couple of electrifying performances that catalyze the drama--not to mention the forward momentum of history. They’re brief, but they do the job. ... Magnificent, often stirring performance by Cranston that no one else comes close to matching.

Producer Beers' team is the gold standard in male-aimed reality, and these guys have grit to burn.

We ultimately get to spend time with Henson's judges hashing it out. That brings insight into what makes things work, into creature logic, proportions, movement, performance facilitation, and letting the creation "emote through its environment." We don't just watch art being made, we come to understand the process.

There’s some temporizing in the first couple of episodes, but not enough to subvert what this third season so clearly is--another winner.

The soul of the show, though, is its conflicted "heroes," truly tortured, in palpable ways, recalling the best, early days of NBC's ill-fated Monday comic book. There's no cartoonery here. Just adult adventure and angst.

This show was always best when handling the little things that aim to capture life, and often do.

Screenwriter Peter Filardi ("The Craft") and director Mikael Salomon (HBO's "Band of Brothers") have defied the odds, delivering a four-hour, two-night version of King's vampire-infestation parable that ranks with the best filming of his work. It has genuinely scary parts, which is rare enough in video- King, but it's also perfectly in tune with his mordant sense of humor. Wickedly funny lines are scattered throughout Filardi's script. [20 June 2004, p.11]

They honor the job without trivializing it, or turning it into melodramatic entertainment pap for the masses.

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

DWP does want to be provocative, just not too provocative. Mostly it just wants to keep an open mind and open heart. Mostly, it succeeds.

The usual C.K. show--fresh, funny, smart, bleak, offensive, entertaining--with one minor demerit, for an overlong finish.

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.

The show's crisp, witty dialogue is mostly egalitarian among the ages, and everyone's great at working the words.

Smart new cop show that takes time to build, but will reward patience.

Still funny and still not for everyone. Louie remains very much a taste that you either acquire--or don't.

The fifth-season opener efficiently brooms away that creaky storyline, and even pivots on an effective twist that reinforces one more “HoC” theme: Frank will be Frank.

A bit melodramatic, a bit manipulative, Touch is still one of the best pilots of the 2011-12 season to date.

This evocative hour doesn't lionize Steinem, but simply lays out what happened.

No relaxing allowed with Boss. Sorry about that, and sorry for this series, which remains smart, absorbing and particularly well done.

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

It all adds up to one solid nail-biter, with a profusion of clever clues that seems to cast suspicion on everyone.

With his 2000 show, HBO’s “Killing Them Softly,” as another baseline for the best of Chappelle’s TV standup, this one’s right up there, too--not quite its equal, but close.

Smart newcomer with a pair of leads that turns The Americans into a likely winner.

It's wonderful stuff, and we all seem to be on a voyage of discovery.

Don't miss the pilot. It's the best new crime series of the year, whatever you call it, tabloid TV, exciting TV, real TV. [6 Jan 1989]

This playful hour gets under your skin with its quirky personality humor, at the same time it's spinning a pretty fair murder yarn. [12 July 2002, p.B51]

I've watched tonight's show, the pilot, three times already - and not because I'm searching for the clues that Affleck and Bailey have embedded in the film. I love hearing nerdy IRS agent Jim Prufrock's improbably forceful declaration of why he loathes tax cheats. I love the way the Push residents talk about their local "slow-dance bar" as if it were as commonplace as a KFC outlet. I'm curious why all the couples in Push make love every other night at precisely the same time. I admire the creative visual presentation, which rivals that of a good commercial or music video. [17 Sept 2002, p.B03]

This eccentric assemblage truly captures the distinct feel of Vegas-the night, the gallows humor of grisly work and the people who thrive on it. Sure, it's seedy, surreal and supremely specific. That's why we're hooked. [6 Oct 2000, p.B51]

I love the characters, the actors, the spell they weave, the way of telling a story. By the second episode, I didn't want them to solve the case so it would go on and on. Homicide: Life on the Street is another stroll down heartbreak alley. [31 Jan 1993, p.21]

This stuff is good. No, superb.

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]

Wonderful. ... It is a realistic drama, the sort of thing you might see occasionally on experimental "American Playhouses" on public TV. But nobody does realistic drama on commercial TV today. [1 May 1990]

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

"Molly Dodd" may not make me laugh 42 times in a 23-minute period, but it never made me wince, either. And it's even funnier this second season, starting tonight. [24 Mar 1988]

The best unscripted show on commercial television this season, which you may correctly point out is faint praise; but in this case, it's not.

Hip deep in all the chicken droppings about the movie, you would hardly know that it's a damn good movie. [9 Sept 1993, p.109]