He anticipates pretty much every move made against him, as you might as well, given that they’re made by people designed to remind you of previous people in Jack’s universe.

It is often funny, but it could be funnier if it were wed to more coherent storytelling.

The reason why Queer As Folk largely works is because it’s driven by the characters, not their sexuality.

If Community has been an underappreciated gem for the past three years, its fourth season premiere is sadly lackluster. But if the Dean’s episode-ending prediction isn’t entirely convincing, it could be that Guarascio and Port just need more time.

With the relationships among MacMillan, Clark, and Howe in the foreground, Halt and Catch Fire makes impressive use of its time period without treating it as an elbow-to-the-ribs joke.

It's an exhilarating take on a couple of familiar genres, balancing horror, humor, and heart.

Given the heft of the show’s themes and the crispness of the writing, it’s got to be a brilliant social commentary disguised as a major network sitcom, right? Or maybe Joel McHale really is that likable and we’re all wallowing in nostalgia for a simpler 2002. Either way, boo-yah.

The conspiracy here is grounded in human activity and ambition, rather than aliens or supernatural forces.

Even the flashy action is of a piece with all this conventional structuring, as Chance regularly takes a few minutes to run and jump or punch and shoot. Such predictability does Human Target no favors.

It just needs sharper writing, and the supporting cast needs to be developed. While Kaling and Messina are charming and work well together, the rest of the show needs to catch up.

If visuals are not mundane in Southland, neither is the dialogue, especially the incidental repartee that oils coexistence in a high-stress profession.

In HBO's miniseries Mildred Pierce, beginning on 27 March, she embodies the sort of ambition and resilience that might seem ideal during a depression-or even a great recession. That is, she's a function of her time (the one first imagined for her by James M. Cain) as well as ours.

The Fosters needs more than good intentions and tentative, sanitised handling of its subject to survive once a same-sex couple central to a US drama passes unnoticed.

The show's historical bread-and-butter is accompanied by a thin dramatic gruel, for the most part.

While the interviewees here can look back and put pieces together, fragmentation and lack of focus may be Gettysburg's most authentic effect.

The connections are sudden, relationships shallow, and dialogue glib.

The comedy that does occur in How I Met Your Mother isn't enough to compensate for its inconsistencies.

True, the episode threatened to jump the shark when it was revealed that James (Patrick Heusinger), the unsuspecting man Blair corralled to play of the part of her wonderful new boyfriend, had his own secret, ludicrous even by Gossip Girl standards. But in the coming episodes, Blair and Chuck retain their place as the series’ most exciting kids in turmoil, its salacious center.

C.S.I.: Miami is very slick, very clever, and very eager to please.

It's more subtly, and more forcefully too, a quest for understanding, specifically an understanding of how the world works.

As George W. Bush describes his thinking on September 11, it's hard not to wonder, well, what he was thinking. It's a mystery that remains unanswered in George W. Bush: The 9/11 Interview.

What distinguishes The 4400 is its representation of the sense of alienation that pervades post-9/11 America.

Even in the face of all this men’s realm intrigue, the most compelling aspect of Big Love remains the women.

American Dreams, although set in the supposedly kindler, gentler days of 1963, manages not wrap itself in a “things were so much better then” haze. In so doing, it encourages viewers to think about the issues it tentatively raises, and to make connections between the lives it portrays and the lives we live now.

Again and again, Ethel insists she doesn't like to "talk about" her self, doesn't like to be introspective. And so the film offers images for the rest of us to parse, public performances that may or may not reveal what we want to see.

While Keating is immediately a compelling character, it is unfortunate that so much of the pilot episode requires the viewer to suspend disbelief, starting with the idea that a top-notch defense attorney would allow a class of newbie law students unfettered access to all documents in a case that she is currently defending.

Though the show occasionally lapses into the “cringe comedy” mode, made popular by "The Office" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Flight of the Conchords" is also quite sweet.

Set in 1963, Pan Am's production is highly stylized, neat, and dreamy, perfectly suited to the nostalgia it is eager to evoke.