Annette Bening is stunning in this smart biopic.

Gervais is a comic genius specializing in the art of discomfort, but this new character doesn't have the same compelling anti-charisma as The Office's David Brent--in part because Andy is such a peripheral figure in his workplace, but also because he's a more subtle creation, a mixed bag of the admirable and reprehensible.

Big Love... is in no hurry to unfurl its plotlines or push its charms. Give it a couple of episodes, though, and you'll be snared.

Hopefully this overkill of plot twists is just series finale syndrome in reverse--an opening-episode gambit to snag viewers--and the show will settle down to work on its more subtle elements.

[A] pleasantly distracting drama.

Everything about Free Ride is slightly exaggerated and artificial, including the odd facial expressions.

The real disappointment of the new Who isn't its use of (slightly) slick special effects, though. It's a structural problem: Instead of stretching a storyline across a whole season, each adventure is resolved within a single episode, making this closer to your average detective series.

A template of clichés the writers don't even bother to fill in.

Unfortunately, Prison Break's dialogue is nowhere near as sharp as its plotting.

Sleeper Cell moves way too slowly to get anyone's pulse racing—except maybe the Arab American community, which will almost certainly protest, despite the writers' awkward attempts to give equal screen time to "good" and "bad" Muslims.

Another failed attempt to use rock as the backdrop for an insipid sitcom.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus has finally slain the Seinfeld curse.

Black.White takes the reality subgenre to a whole new level, shining a beacon on American's most excruciating blind spot.

It yearns to be an HBO-worthy drama that reckons with heady moral issues, but it can't resist the temptation of prime-time gloss and melodrama.

A transparent, if lame, vehicle for Freddie Prinze Jr.

Has a few funny lines.

It works the cringe comedy formula reasonably well.

It's not clear yet how well the show will balance the fertility doctor's high jinks with patient scenarios.