Political Animals hews fairly closely to the USA tone and smartly employs any number of light-drama conventions, thus it can likely be enjoyed simply as an entertainment

Breaking Bad is one of the great shows of television's Golden Age, and the first two episodes of the show's fifth season will give viewers no reason to think otherwise.

The first two hours of Hit and Miss come across as a finely observed, well-acted independent film, and I wasn't really sure whether there was a lot more story left to tell as Episode 2 came to a close, but I'm willing to let Mia prove me wrong.

While it's no "Closer," the Eric McCormack vehicle Perception is perfectly adequate "Eccentric Consulting Genius" fare.

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.

Despite the careful attention to image enhancement possibilities, the core ugliness and toxic narcissism of Anger Management are impossible to ignore.

When it comes to expectations, Louie does a pretty consistent job of exceeding them.

On paper, it all appears to be functional. In reality, I find myself uninterested in Ryan's minuscule problems and Wilfred's repeated attempts to hector or nag Ryan into taking more chances with his narrow little life.

It's got a smart pace, good performances and it's a relief not to have to commit to something long-term.

When The Newsroom isn't obvious and self-congratulatory, it's manipulative and shrieky.

All in all, the new season of Falling Skies gets the basics right.

All things considered, though, this is a show that is pretty firmly fixed on what it does best--serving up soapy, Texas-sized shenanigans and trying to mix in a little seasoning of real emotion along the way.

The relationships that are sketched out in the first hour are promising.

Not only is Hemingway and Gellhorn wretched, it is bathed in pretentiousness and pseudo-intellectual delusions of grandeur. It's not just crap, it's expensive, painfully "artistic" crap starring a lot of actors who should have known better once they took a look at the script, which is hilariously awful.

Common Law, like "Fairly Legal" before it, isn't just formulaic--it's lazy.

Veep simply isn't particularly fresh or funny, and most of its jokes are telegraphed from a long way away.

It's certainly been a long time since I was this beguiled by a set a characters, but Girls is one of those rare birds: It's a show that comes to us with its voice, characters and ideas fully formed.

I'm happy to report that not being a fan of James Van Der Beek from the "Creek" didn't prevent me from enjoying the actor in the moderately amusing ABC sitcom.

Everything about Magic City shows a lack of depth, and the pacing is almost glacial.

Even if Scandal isn't quite as instantly addictive as "Grey's Anatomy" was back in the day, this is a well-paced, generally well-acted show with some promising elements (though there is also an occasional tendency to offer contrived redemptions that don't make a ton of sense).

The show takes the time to give a few realistic dimensions to the characters' emotional lives, and each actor in the core trio has sharp comic timing.

The storytelling by executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and their writing staff is increasingly assured and judicious; the first-rate cast continues to mine the full depth of the material; and the show itself is visually commanding, especially in the hands of Alan Taylor, who directed the first two episodes of the season.

All in all, this season premiere allows fans to marinate in the world of the characters for two hours.

It would be a mistake to count this scruffy little comedy out. It's really charming.

This is a case of a show just not working on both a structural and emotional level.

An animated comedy that is propelled by a very strong voice cast and by its own daffy comedic momentum.

It doesn't seem to know who it wants to focus on or what it wants to do (the security missions, such as they are, are unexceptional afterthoughts).

A tedious array of shrieky moments, dumb stereotypes and unearned sentiment.