Foul-mouthed, violent and potentially depressing with its unvarnished characters, The Shield also shocks your heart with pounding action and tickles your brain by presenting a cops-and-robbers world where almost everyone is at least morally ambiguous, at worst corrupt. [12 Mar 2002]

The perfect marriage of television and literature.

A wonderfully complex drama, with plenty of sly humor, that showcases slick performances from its two stars, and magically straddles the parallel universes of film noir and high school high jinks, while generously tossing out amusing asides. [22 Sept 2004, p.D1]

One of the best comedies in years.

The best new TV show of the 2006-07 season.

The Pacific groans with technically preposterous battle scenes, but it is the minute behavior of ordinary men both in and after those extraordinary circumstances that takes your breath away and helps put The Pacific in a class of its own among war movies.

Boston Med operates at the edges of real life in a way scripted shows can only approach. It is the single must-see broadcast-TV show of the summer.

With the tormented Luther, it's sometimes tough even to identify who is the cat and who is the mouse. Writing and acting come together to produce characters, more than stories, who are powerful, surprising, ambiguous, and all that other stuff.

In so many ways, it's as good as television gets.

It's no lie to say you don't get this sort of stylish and challenging stuff very frequently on TV, adult subject matter treated maturely in a series that makes you squirm and think.

Angel is more straight-ahead action than Buffy, but it is a spin-off that twirls terrificly. Plunked behind Buffy, it completes the most joyously entertaining two hours on television. [5 Oct 1999, p.E01]

Amy Brenneman, as Licalsi, is the dark-haired, more visceral contrast to Kelly's wife, Laura, played by Sherry Stringfield. Both women add depth to the drama, as do James McDaniel as the precinct commander, Nicholas Turturro as the new kid in the cop shop and Tom Towles as the guy from the Organized Crime Squad.

One of the best new series of the season. [30 Sept 2001, p.H01]

One of the best new series this fall. [2 Oct 2001, p.C04]

The best traditional sitcom to arrive on the tube since "Everybody Loves Raymond." Perfectly cast, sharply written. [22 Sept 2003, p.E06]

Another heart-stopping adventure show from "Alias"'s J.J. Abrams...Lost undertakes the ambitious assignment of developing 14 characters, including the usual tough guys and brave gals, as well as a rotund, lovable dolt, a 9-year-old boy, and a Korean couple who don't speak English, all suddenly thrust together to fight for survival. If anybody can meet the challenge, it's Abrams. [22 Sept 2004, p.D01]

This sparkling saga of an extended dysfunctional family has more laughs than regular characters.

The best sitcom this year, and one of the best in a lot of years.

This season's best new show.

This may be one of the most beautifully crafted and original TV shows ever to get fall consideration on a big network.

The monumental production is worth bragging about.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, whose pilot is the first feature-length film made in Botswana--a movie that starts off one of the most glowingly original, kindhearted, and genuinely engaging TV series of this fading decade.

The song and dance spills over everywhere, even onto the football field, in this season's best new TV show, Glee.

Justified itself stays on target all the time, too, an instant entrant in the best-new-show sweepstakes in a TV season that already has several solid candidates.

The Killing is also the least prepossessing, an eerily quiet, yet compelling and complex, tale of the way the murder of a teenager affects the lives of many people.

More than any of Burns' documentaries except The Civil War, Prohibition provides viewers with a real feel for the times as well as new and surprising information.

CSI doesn't shy from the less savory aspects of the business it covers. There are flashback cams that show the crime taking place and micro cams that look closely at the evidence...But it's kind of tasteful, if you can imagine, and contributes to a Friday night show that is not only entertaining, but might actually teach you a thing or two. [6 Oct 2000]

Funny. The characters, even the hip comic star, become likable very quickly. Despite yourself, you'll be laughing before the first commercial. [31 May 1990, p.C11]