Series creator Vince Gilligan wrote the first two episodes of this eight-episode batch, and they crackle, as always, with intelligence and an ever-lingering sense of dread.

Brilliant. [21 Oct 2004]

There hasn't been a television drama as good as "The Wire" since the equally ignored "Homicide: Life on the Street" held down the bottom rungs of the Nielsen ratings a decade ago. [17 Sep 2004]

"The Wire" is as complex a picaresque as one is likely to find this side of Dickens.

"The Sopranos" returns in better form this year than it did at the start of its second season. New territory is explored and Chase seems more willing to push the Soprano story forward. [2 Mar 2001]

What's most important is that Homeland provides a smart, thrilling hour of entertainment for the next 12 weeks.

None of these twists are for the faint of heart, which is why Breaking Bad is a smart, thought-provoking TV show that elevates the artistic achievements of the medium.

Maintains the quality viewers have come to expect.

Through the first four episodes, Fargo remains a terrific thriller laced with black humor.... Welcome back, Fargo, which in its early going proves itself the best TV series fall 2015 has to offer.

Through the first four episodes of the new season, the ever-excellent spy thriller explores the parent-child dynamic, introduces the concept of biological weapons and plays on the suspicions of FBI neighbor Stan (Noah Emmerich). The Americans is mostly adept at surprising viewers by not tacking in expected directions, although one plot results in a dead end that left me to wonder, why did the writers spend so much time on that?

There's something inspiring about series creator David Simon's trusting his audience enough to tell a complex story about the elusive motives of cops, drug dealers and longshoremen without shortchanging his characters' humanity in the process. [31 May 2003]

Season four promises more of the same while expanding on stories in the books and in some cases improving on what could be long literary slogs.

"Battlestar Galactica" is one of the most politically relevant and necessarily bleak series on television today.

The show is just as strong as it was at the end of its first season. To be sure, Transparent isn't for everyone, and not because of its central transgender character, who’s actually one of the most likable of the bunch. Viewers are more likely to have a problem with the rarefied, tony Los Angeles setting, and the self-absorbed characters who populate the series.

The series remains smart and thought-provoking but it's also quite funny.

Episode one spends an awful lot of time on digging a huge hole in the ground with fairly predictable results. And in episode two there’s a lot of wandering around a greenhouse buzzing with insects that’s supposed to be ominous but instead comes off like a homage to “The X-Files.” ... The third episode moves all the stories forward at a better clip.

"The Office" is hilarious, but it is an acquired taste as it serves up comedy of the uncomfortable. [10 Oct 2003]

Magnificently profane and entirely engaging, Deadwood remains one of TV's best character-driven dramas. [4 Mar 2005, p.W-45]

Despite how outlandish some of the scenarios become, they remain relatable.

The body count is high in early episodes and Philip gets pulled back into spying, just not in the exact way as before. This new avenue threatens to upend his family, which, of course, lays the groundwork for one of the show’s psychologically intense Philip-Elizabeth relationship-defining scenes early in the season’s third episode.

Viewers who cringe at pathos may miss the occasionally lighter tone of earlier Mad Men seasons. But these are the circumstances the characters find themselves in. Besides, at this point in a series' run, most viewers are tuning in for the character stories, where some grace and positivity still pop up.

Gritty, tough, no-holds barred television that feels more real than any other police drama on the air. It makes "NYPD Blue" look like a children's show. [10 Mar 2002, p.TV-5]

Viewers hungering for a twisty-turny, who's-right-who's-wrong thriller will find it in Showtime's domestic terrorism drama Homeland.

Fans of “Six Feet Under” are likely to enjoy Transparent while those who find characters who make consistently poor choices frustrating and may be less enamored. “Transparent” isn’t funny all that often, but at its heart it does tell a relatively new, original story in a way that’s grounded and heartfelt without being at all saccharine.

It is much more of a psychological thriller that impresses with its use of an unnerving stillness.

It’s dark, bloody and occasionally sexy, as it usually is, and Thrones fans wouldn’t want it any other way.

Master of None avoids comedy conventions, eschewing a regular cast in favor of recurring characters and guest stars who pop up in episodes devoted to different themes. The show plays a bit like “Louie” in that way, but Master of None is funnier, less dramatic and tonally closer to Woody Allen’s lighter fare.

The season premiere is a little clunky as it cleans up the mess left after the show's first-season finale--the sooner the show moves beyond that, the better.