Burton and Taylor is a wry, bittersweet take on a celebrated Hollywood romance. [21 Oct 2013, p.48]

This is all good, capering, costume-ball fun, even if Mary's life was dismal. My chief complaint is that pretty Adelaide Kane, as Mary, lacks any spirit or presence. [21 Oct 2013, p.50]

[A] pleasurable, cheeky new crime drama. [21 Oct 2013, p.47]

Everyone works so hard--including Arnett, even if he never lets you see him sweat--that this comes very close to succeeding. [21 Oct 2013, p.48]

It's meaningful that a gay dad with a teen daughter can be conventional--it's a just not great comedy. [14 Oct 2013, p.44]

Gregg has a deadpan ease that makes the engine purr. And his team is good-looking and stamped with just enough personality and humor: Without killing the fun, they ground the show. [14 Oct 2013, p.43]

Gina Gershon's performance as designer Donatella Versace is fabulously strange. [7 Oct 2013, p.49]

The first two episodes of season 3 are reassuringly grounded in believable intrigue. [7 Oct 2013, p.49]

This is adult entertainment in the very best possible sense. [7 Oct 2013, p.47]

It is nice but overly familiar in its reliance on pop-culture signposts and snuggly sentimentality. [30 Sep 2013, p.53]

Trophy Wife is no prize--the pilot is swamped with exposition recited in the girlishly thin voice of star Malin Akerman--yet there's enough of a comedic brain and cast at work here that some additional polishing might do the trick. [30 Sep 2013, p.49]

The opener sets this all up smoothly, and Collette, combining a mother's protective instinct with type A pride, is great to watch. [23 Sep 2013]

Arguably you shouldn't miss any of The Hollow Crown. But the one you're commanded to watch is Richard II. [23 Sep 2013]

The pilot has come under fire for racist jokes, but at Cheap Laffs there's not enough of a creative sensibility for that to matter. [23 Sep 2013]

Even if his acting feels like a sentimental stunt, Gervais wrote and directed the series with gentle skill. [16 Sep 2013, p.41]

A lot of momentum is lost having the lovers live 60 miles apart.... But the tender wrap-up will leave the waterworks flushed and refreshed. [9 Sep 2013, p.42]

Watching Nucky's frenemies thrive like poison toadstools ringing a tree--that's a grim, gripping spectacle in its own right. [9 Sep 2013, p.42]

Sunny is Punch and Judy for our time: invigoratingly primal entertainment.[9 Sep 2013, p.41]

It has some good jokes, but this overly familiar spoof lacks the strength to push the envelope. [2 Sep 2013]

[A] sure-footed legal drama. [2 Sep 2013]

The gutted-out city is perhaps the show's most compelling character. [26 Aug 2013, p.38]

At this point the show may lack in si-prises, but like one of Miss Kay's lovingly prepared brisket dinners, there's pleasing comfort in its familiarity. [26 Aug 2013, p.37]

It's Jersey Shore toned up as an Abercrombie & Fitch campaign. [12 Aug 2013]

A revenge farce that takes such perplexingly arbitrary turns that it finally sits down like a confused Labrador and refuses to budge. [12 Aug 2013]

Cove is exactly What it aspires to be--uncynical, lulling and sweet. [12 Aug 2013]

Queen delivers the basic goods (intrigue, sex) , but the only vivid character is Margaret Beaufort, mom of the future Henry VII. She's played by Amanda Hale with startling neuritic fervor. [12 Aug 2013]

It's beautifully constructed, cleverly fitted with red herrings and capacious enough to house a community of suspects. The emotional payoff is sensational, and so is the acting. [12 Aug 2013]

The history behind the story is tremendous--you feel its pulse. [5 Aug 2013, p.48]

[The Newsroom] is much stronger and more solidly entertaining. [29 Jul 2013, p.37]

It's trite and obvious, and meant to be, with songs that are shallow, sunny and snappy.... Just Go with it. [22 Jul 2013, p.48]

Honey Boo Boo is just a little girl doing [her] best to be a beauty queen, TV star and dutiful daughter to the surprisingly levelheaded June. [22 Jul 2013]

Two tense, tricky, fine performances [22 Jul 2013]

An irritating comedy-drama. [15 Jul 2013]

This new hour-long comedy is a bustling, rather scattered affair. [15 Jul 2013]

An intricate mystery confidently spun out with dark, unsettling shocks. [15 Jul 2013]

This could all pay off spectacularly. [8 Jul 2013, p.36]

It's more like Seinfeld reconceived for the slacker sensibility of a director like Kevin Smith or Richard Linklater. And that's what's wrong with the show: It's hard to shake the feeling that it's just someone's project.

This is less interesting than I'd hoped. [8 Jul 2013, p.36]

It's a much more impressive spectacle than ABC's mindlessly entertaining Empire.

[A] superbly tawdry new crime series. [8 Jul 2013, p.35]

Weeds feels like a stoned Desperate Housewives: The pupils are dilated wide, as if able to pick out in sharp relief every detail of this suburban America, yet nothing really seems in focus at all.

It's always good to see dancing that's dancing and not a montage of repositioned limbs.

Thanks to the nimble Leary, ever riveting as TV's most nuanced antihero (sorry, Tony Soprano), Tommy's tenuous struggle for sobriety is even more rewarding than last season's harrowing downfall.

[A] smartly crafted show.

It's all so much fun, in fact, that I propose Dancing viewing parties: Break out the wine and crackers and let ABC provide the delicious, calorie-free cheese.

Sedgwick embraces the character's quirks, including a weakness for sugary snacks, while conveying her keen intelligence.

The Comeback is funny, especially when it skewers the tasteless and false in reality TV.

Though [Ramsay's] bleep-filled rants are supposed to bring out the best in his staff, they seem like blatant workplace harassment. When he turns his ire on the customers, it's even harder to stomach.

Too bad the show can't resist taking itself seriously as a "social experiment."

The fast-paced craziness has a hit-or-miss quality, but I'm still laughing at the thought of an action flick pairing Jim Caviezel's Jesus with motor-mouth Chris Tucker.

Think of it as a newsmagazine program unbound by considerations of taste or balance.

The conflict often seems manufactured, but Cowell continues to lift this above the Star Search level.

In its second season this gritty frontier drama still boasts the most colorfully eccentric ensemble of any show on TV. But Al Swearengen, the malignly glowering saloon boss, played to the hilt by Golden Globe winner Ian McShane, is first among equals.

There are bright spots here, including Pompeo's skillful performance and the surprisingly touching relationship between Meredith and her mother, a renowned surgeon. But to be worthy of study, Grey's Anatomy needs more of a brain.

Devotees are probably poised to dismiss the adaptation out of hand, but I found enough funny business here to overcome my sales resistance.

I commend Banks for keeping up her interest level, but it gets ever harder to buy into the phony melodrama of redemption and suffering.

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." I never came close to sharing that bloodthirsty sentiment from Shakespeare's Henry VI until I watched the early episodes of the fourth series to carry the Law & Order brand.

Forget the tech background; the cohosts are a natural comedy team. That's why this show is a hoot, even if it's a little like grown-ups playing in a sandbox.

It's slick, stylish and oh-so-sexy, but plausibility is a comparatively low priority for this second-year series about a circle of L.A. lesbians.

How'd They Do That? rehashes a previously aired Home Edition and adds a few details that weren't worth including the first time. Why'd they bother?

The pilot aspires to outrageousness, but the humor needs to get a whole lot smarter.

Everybody here has a festering grudge or a haunting memory, and you wish they could simply sit down someplace and talk things over.

Though Krumholtz captures Charlie's combination of genius and immaturity, Morrow's straight-arrow role sorely needs a few dabs of color.

A well-crafted, surprisingly intelligent update of ABC's late-'70s Star Wars clone.

You may well have misgivings about yet another season for this show, particularly with Haysbert out of the picture. ... But the plot, which involves the abduction of a high government official, will absorb viewers once again.

Though Allison is potentially worth watching as both a medium and a mother of three, someone needs to conjure up a stronger supporting cast if this show is to hold our interest.

Smits and Alda clearly increase the show's charisma quotient, and it's good to see Matheson's character stirring the pot once more. ... But the writers seem almost shameless in their resort to medical crises.

I don't much care which duo ultimately comes in first and collects the $1 million prize, and the personality conflicts aren't dramatically different from those on other reality shows. But at least this series covers a lot of interesting ground.

House stands out on the strength of its misanthropic main character.

Remarkable.

Dialogue like this is an encouraging sign that the people who make The O.C. don't take it much more seriously than I do.

Shatner has a ball playing a paragon of inappropriate behavior and lends the egocentric character a surprising touch of poignancy in his rare moments of introspection. But it's going to be tricky finding the right balance between Shore and Crane while allowing each to stay in touch with his inner devil.

Fortunately CSI: NY has something in common with its predecessors besides a taste for the distasteful: a solid lead performance.

So cheeky, sexy and alive that you can't help enjoying it.

With no reward besides fleeting fame, what rational person would want to go through domestic upheaval merely for viewers' amusement?

Gritty and engrossing as ever.

Bell is an attractive lead, but the show... starts out by taking itself too seriously and working too hard to establish an atmosphere of teen angst mixed with noir mystery. It wouldn't hurt if the student-sleuth lightened up.

Grabs you so forcefully that you won't shake free even when the drama strains credulity.

Stewart has established himself as TV's most skilled lampooner since he replaced Kilborn at the Comedy Central anchor desk in 1999, and he's in top form this election year.

This is the most original new cartoon series I've seen since SpongeBob SquarePants arrived in 1999. If only it were as funny.

Though Tommy's conversations with Jimmy seem like a glib gimmick, Rescue Me redeems itself with rough firehouse humor and a realistic depiction of the emergencies faced by the crew.

Stunningly dull.

If you automatically expect a new HBO series to be edgy or innovative, you'll be disappointed in this one. It's basically just a sitcom—but it has the advantage of being funny.

Feels like a retread.

The show delivered more pure entertainment in the auditions than it has since the finalists became housemates and started the usual reality-show backbiting.

This series is usually more entertaining than most of the genre, so I was disappointed to note that the fifth-season contestants include Alison, the runner-up on another CBS reality show, last summer's Big Brother 4.

For all its "look what we can get away with" grandstanding and scalpel-sharp wit, Nip/Tuck succeeds best when it deftly pierces the heart.

The show remains intelligently written and remarkably well acted, but there's a sense that it's marking time.

Once The Shield grabs you, it's awfully hard to turn away.

Once you grow accustomed to the trash talk, however, the series draws you deeper and deeper into a little world where the law holds no sway and right is trodden in the mud.

[Steve Buscemi's] appearance is the occasion for exposition that's not as smooth as we'd expect from this extraordinary series. Yet the season premiere has moments so compelling that you'll be irresistibly drawn back into the family business.

There are enough positive signs in the two-hour premiere that I'll probably take a look ... when the series moves to its regular time period.

It wouldn't be a crime if the contestants were consciously showing their dramatic side, but there ought to be a law against some tricks of the reality trade.

John Ritter's death last September left a huge hole at the center of this sitcom. ABC chose to prop it up rather than shut it down, a decision that's looking increasingly unfortunate.

The group dynamics are worth observing for a while, but when the women go into catfight mode, the show slides into reality-TV routine.

The L Word is hot, to be sure.

Hilariously peculiar.

It's an appropriate time to ask how the first spinoff is doing. The answer is quite well—if you're a David Caruso fan.