As it did last season, the show thoughtfully explores ideas about how belief systems spread and what people do when confronted with gods--or a God--that makes little sense to them.

Sewell looks good in the Italian suits and shades, the supporting cast is generally good and the atmosphere is effective even when the pacing has problems.

Mismatched cops forced to work together is one of the oldest TV tropes in the book, but The Bridge builds such a realistic, detailed world around the detectives here that the dynamic is often fresh.

Bradley brings a great deal of subtle pathos and doughty courage Hartnell's predicament, and ultimately, An Adventure becomes much more than a fun swing through TARDIS trivia. It becomes a story about hard work, ingenuity and a classy passing of the torch.

This new season of Homeland.... comes across at times like a newborn foal on wobbly legs.

In its second season, Empire’s stilettos are sharper, its gloss is glossier and its enjoyably soapy turns are even larger than life, if that’s possible.

It's worth noting that Looking is one of the sweetest and most romantic shows on television, and one the best at depicting the complexity and curiosity that drives many sexual encounters.

House of Cards is a strange mixture of freedom--Fincher and his cohorts clearly did what they wanted to do--and limitation: These powerful, venal characters and the well-tended hothouse they live in feel quite familiar (and not just because this is based on a UK miniseries of the same name).

As was the case with the second season, Season 3 of Luther is only four hours long, and the drama would probably be more satisfying if it didn't try to cover so many bases in that limited running time.

The Defiant Ones sends you away admiring the two guys who made the big score.

Episodes isn't a weighty series at all, but these actors elevate every scene they are in with spot-on comic timing and a graceful ability to play a range of conflicting emotions at once.

The best reason to watch, however, is the music and the group’s on-stage performance. Whether or not you were a boy band fan in the 1980s, this is top-quality stuff.

What's especially impressive in Season 3 is how cogently and clearly events in the two different universes are handled. It's not hard to tell which is which and it's not hard to follow how the two worlds are connected, and those connections have only deepened the mythology in pleasing ways.

Fortitude reminds me of "Borgen" because neither show is loud; nothing about this kind of drama is bombastic or outsized. Fortitude takes its time as it builds up its icy, workaday world and depicts the day to day lives of its residents.

It remains invigoratingly itself and it continues to land in Hannah in a series of situations in which layers of thematic complexity stack up like delayed planes circling a busy airport.

The new cop drama The Chicago Code resembles its lead characters: It's focused, determined and ambitious--and sometimes it tries to do too much. Still, the handsome Code succeeds far more often than it strikes out.

The tacked-on attempt to give the show some heart ("See, they're just crazy, mixed-up regular folks with good intentions!") was so disappointingly cynical and contrived. It was a transparent attempt to give depth to something that had so vociferously lacked it.

There are fitful moments that work, but the show also manages to shoot itself in the foot regularly.

The results of Soderbergh's latest foray into series television are frequently terrific.

The diverting and enjoyable Terriers occupies a different stylistic territory, but there's a noir strain underneath its shaggy exterior. As the best detective stories do, it features a smart, flawed lead character who is too stubborn and inquisitive for his own good.

Fresh Off the Boat is good--at times, very good. Without question, it's one of the best new shows of the broadcast network season: funny, well-acted and promising on a number of levels.

The parts that do work possess the doom-laden yet strangely optimistic romanticism of Milch's best work.

Much of the show simply feels disjointed, or tired, or both. Despite intermittent flashes of liveliness, the pacing of Ray Donovan is off, especially at first, when it feels as though the show is trying to cover too much ground and cram in too much backstory about the Donovans' troubled past in Boston.

While a tale of restless discontent in a rich California coastal town offers an intriguing ride, it’s also a deliberate one. Think of it as a Sunday drive, at a leisurely pace that enables the passengers to absorb every detail of the scenery.

There are some bumps in the road as the show lays out its premise, but Supergirl has a number of things going for it: Melissa Benoist is convincing and charming in the lead role; the supporting cast, which features the likes of Calista Flockhart, Chyler Leigh, Mehcad Brooks and David Harewood, is very good; and the leaders of the writing team behind it.

It's certainly worth keeping up with Key & Peele, given how strong and confident those outings are.

The good news is that the unusually ambitious Awake succeeds at several of the things it's attempting, and star Jason Isaacs grounds the drama with a charismatic yet subtle performance.

The good news is that this show's building blocks are very strong. The dialogue, the world and the cast are all enjoyable, and the show simply exudes potential.