The reason the show feels so real at every turn is that it is a perfect balance of dramatic realism and gentle humor.

Fellowes does know how to write some tasty dialogue, especially for Maggie Smith....The other performances are equally winning, but beyond that, you can't help feeling these actors are having a jolly good time with all this overblown fluff. And so will you.

The characterizations are carefully nuanced in Southland, and the performances are equal to the quality of writing.

Abbott makes sure the quirkiness of the Gallaghers is firmly rooted in three-dimensional, credible characterization. You never feel a bit of inauthenticity here.

The performances are superb, especially that of Sewell in the title role. He underplays the part to sublime perfection, making Aurelio Zen one of the most attractive and fascinating TV cops in years.

The ensemble cast is terrific and the direction lean and perfectly pitched at every turn.

Well, subject matter doesn't get more profound than life and death, but, thanks to McCarthy's writing and the two veteran actors, we're completely drawn into the discussion, so much so that we're taken by surprise as McCarthy careful injects another possible interpretation of the play's set-up.

The performances are precise and beautifully detailed, as are the characterizations in Thomas' script. Fans of the original series will see certain echoes in some of the characters in the sequel, but the echoes are faint enough to allow us our memories of, among so many others, Rachel Gurney and David Langton as the Bellamys, Angela Baddeley as the cook and Gordon Jackson as Hudson, who was so much more than just the butler.

Even without the original source material, Cinema Verite offers provocative insight into how far we've become lost in the reality-TV wilderness in the past 40 years.

The emotional authenticity of Downton Abbey continues to make it a classic.

The series commands our attention because of how it was conceived by Neil Cross, who continues to write masterful scripts.

Wilfred works on many levels, something that may not become apparent until after you stop laughing.

The characters bring us into the action and, once there, we want to follow every development.

The Hour stands perfectly well on its own merits. It's so good that other shows should start looking to it as something to emulate.

Sherlock is an electric marriage of great writing with great performances.

If Kirkman, writer/show runner Glen Mazzara ("The Shield") and the rest of the team continue doing what they're doing--and following the template Darabont created--The Walking Dead can have a bloody long life.

Person of Interest separates itself from the gimmick pack, not only because of superbly nuanced characterization and writing but also because of how it engages a post-9/11 sense of paranoia in its viewers.

A genuinely funny and immediately likable sitcom.

There are a couple of bush-league moments in the show....[But]those are minor quibbles, made even more insignificant by the extraordinary performances of Danes, Lewis, Patinkin and Baccarin.

When you have a story as thoroughly involving as this one, evoking both "King Lear" and "Citizen Kane," and when the performances are this good, Boss almost directs itself.

Great historical documentaries not only enlighten us about the past, but tell us things about our own times as well, either directly or implicitly. Prohibition, the latest project by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, states the implicit links between the passage of the 18th Amendment and contemporary politics so loudly, you'd have to be drunk on bathtub gin not to get the message.

The portrait of Belafonte that emerges from the film is also the portrait of the times of his life, the times of the nation's life in the past 60 years.

Like "Justified," it's impossible to point to one element as the primary reason it works so well.

Based on the premiere, the season may wind up being the show's best so far, but even if it doesn't, Mad Men beats almost everything else on TV.

"Deadwood" fans already know that Milch doesn't make it easy for viewers to get a purchase on his series, but for those willing to do the work, Luck, pays off.

A gorgeous new documentary series on the Discovery Channel.

The series is so pervasively cynical--and, by the way, brilliantly funny--it has the potential of making any viewer feel his or her life isn't so bad after all.

It's as great as ever.

[It's so] good you can't help wondering why no one thought of it before, a compelling mix of credible real-life melodrama with a fictionalized approximation of what it takes to get a Broadway show from the idea stage to opening night.

Awake grabs you, unnerves you, breaks your heart and even makes you work a little.

One of the many virtues of Buirski's film is that it doesn't hit viewers over the head with the parallel between the Lovings' case and the debate over same-sex marriage. The parallel is simply there, to be identified and considered by the viewer.

Game Change is graced by three extraordinary performances in the leading roles, beginning with Moore's portrayal of Palin, which is both complex and entirely credible.

Girls represents an exciting moment in television history because, like a handful of other shows (MTV's "Awkward," most notably) it not only makes great use of the medium but has the creative guts to realign it for a new century and a new generation.

Everything you fear might be true about how our government works--or doesn't--becomes hilarious fodder for Veep's biting satire.

Sunday's season premiere sustains the quality of the first season, continues the story line in a completely credible way, and then opens up even more possibilities for future plot developments.

Weight pulls no punches, spares neither the multibillion-dollar food and advertising industries nor public officials for not only failing to fix the problem but actually making it worse, and essentially writes a prescription for the nation's health and economic future that we ignore to our peril.

What's remarkable about this quartet, and why Push Girls proves that reality shows can actually be intelligent and engaging, is that in most ways the women's lives are in fact not all that remarkable.

They [Rayna and Juliette], and the other characters, are anything but [one-dimensional cliches], thanks not only to the writing but also to the performances of the colorful and capable cast.

Louie is the gold standard of contemporary TV comedy.

From the two new episodes made available to critics for review, it's clear that the quality of Breaking Bad will continue undiminished.

The entire constellation of impetuous, ambitious, determined and insecure young urbanites in Girls is realigning in the new season, but at no point in the four episodes sent to critics for review do you feel that any of it is artificial.

Copper has much to recommend it: action, passion and great performances arising from an exploration of classic American themes.

The series is so good that it isn't seriously harmed by its few minor flaws. Much of the dialogue is brilliantly written, revelatory and credible.

At every turn in this heart-wrenching series of films, we are reminded that these men and women are human, no matter how robotic they may seem as they rapidly snap off shots of death and tears.

The performances, the writing, the intelligence that goes into the script and the characters--all reasons for welcoming the start of a new season of The Hour.

The dialogue in the first two episodes of the new season crackles with brilliance.

Self-delusion can grow fairly tiresome, in life and on TV, but what makes Amy sympathetic is that even though she almost convinces us at times that her personal fairy tale actually makes sense, we are always aware of her basic decency and, more important, her vulnerability.

There isn't a better cop show on TV right now than Southland.

Parade's End is a television masterpiece.

Top of the Lake is Jane Campion and her cast at the top of their game.

Mamet is very much on his game in Phil Spector, but so is every member of his cast, including Al Pacino as Spector and Helen Mirren as attorney Linda Kenny Baden: Watching these two titans of acting work is half the fun.

Don Draper's journey has been and remains maddening, in a very good way as far as what makes a great TV show.