It's never easy to say goodbye to a drama as mind-blowingly magnificent as Breaking Bad, but savvy creator Vince Gilligan has picked the right time to put his end game into motion

The special stays true to the tone and searing wit of the original series and makes for a spectacularly funny coda to "The Office." [18 Oct 2004]

If you stick with it, you will be rewarded with some of the most compelling, provocative drama ever produced for television.

Jammed with characters and story lines, it has a Dickensian quality in its ability to capture time and place with precision. It is almost never predictable, avoiding the cliches of the Mafia genre even while it revels in them. Just when you think a story line is going in a particular direction, the show will suddenly shift gears and veer off into unfamiliar terrain without stretching plausibility to the breaking point. [16 Jan 2000]

"The Sopranos" has renewed and refreshed its ability to surprise. [4 Mar 2001]

The overall result is something rare--a film that sucks you in as a riveting thriller would, but also one that will make you pause to ponder issues of race, domestic abuse and our obsession with celebrity.

As good as some other cop shows are -- "The Shield," for example -- no other comes this close to a true-to-life portrayal of life on the mean streets. [29 May 2003]

One of TV's most invigorating and intellectually stimulating series.... provocative television that transcends its genre.

Clearly rooted in life experience, Transparent continues to be a series that understands both love and pain.

Deadwood may not offer the vision of the Old West Americans have had for years, but it is a stunning, intelligent, almost poetic view of how we came to be a nation. [5 Mar 2005, p.1E]

The comedy is so darkly cynical that it's off-putting. If you're a glass-half-full kind of guy like me, it's hard to make the show part of your regular TV menu. [13 Sep 2002]

Sunday night's opening episode, Public Relations, delivers some jaw-dropping moments.

For five decades, the cop drama -- the good guys vs. the bad guys on the streets of our cities -- has been one of the cornerstones of network television, from the days of "Dragnet" to newer shows such as "Hill Street Blues" and "NYPD Blue" that altered TV. But never, ever has there been a cop drama quite like The Shield, and it could have an impact on pop culture that rivals the best of the police shows that came before it. [12 Mar 2002, p.AE 1]

The Australian actor is again in Emmy-caliber form, delivering a gripping character study of a man who isn't comfortable in his own skin.

Homeland has a chance to be a much tighter--and smarter--endeavor with more nuance than "24" ever had. But if a cougar suddenly appears, and/or if someone comes back from the dead, all bets are off.

An emotionally powerful dramedy.

Stick with it, and this Sherlock proves to be a fun and exhilarating TV experience.

Those who make the investment are richly rewarded. There's enough tension, betrayal, treachery, greed and sex, after all, to fill eight seasons of "Scandal."

This adaptation of a BBC series differentiates itself in enough ways to keep things fresh and riveting.

Though the show contains laugh-out-loud moments, it occasionally proves to be more melancholy than mirthful. Along the way, it has some sharp things to say about race, gender, the absurdity of celebrity and the nagging fear of failure. Glover's Atlanta, it turns out, has all the right beats.

Powerful stuff. [16 Apr 2000]

That Thrones remains so utterly unpredictable makes it even more mesmerizing.

Audacious plot lines help to keep Orange Is the New Black so unusual and refreshing. It's the one prison show that you may never want to escape.

So far. so good.

Boomtown offers hope that it could be one of those rare shows that looks sharp, is sharp and actually has something to say...In lesser hands, it could have been hackneyed or pretentious. But creator Graham Yost is a skilled writer who handles the shifting perspectives and the time jumps with aplomb and without sacrificing characterization. [27 Sept 2002, p.SE1]

Marin-based screenwriter Jane Anderson and director Lisa Cholodenko keep the timeline but ditch some of the stories, while proceeding in a leisurely fashion that allows us to really get to know the key characters.

Put together, all these elements make Rescue Me one of the television's top dramas, on a par with the likes of "Deadwood" and "The Shield." It is that rare TV series that offers insight, generates heartfelt emotion and challenges the viewer to consider the darker corners of the soul. [21 June 2005, p.2D]

The engrossing series is loaded with surprisingly strong stuff, including provocative takes on terrorism and the politics of genocide. The special effects are unexpectedly good. And the acting -- from the likes of Edward James Olmos as Commander Adama, Mary McDonnell as President Roslin and Katee Sackhoff as Starbuck -- is light-years better than in the original. [10 Jan 2005, p.2C]