All the new characters are wonderfully drawn, including FBI agent Walker (Annie Wersching); bad, bad guy Jonas Hodges (Jon Voight); a new Chloe-type nerd (Janeane Garofalo). Especially good are Jones and her husband (Colm Feore), who is more consumed with solving his son's death than in being First Man. Whew! Thank God there is Jack Bauer--unchanging, unflinching.

A very funny, very hip, very terrific sci-fi show.

What would you get if you combined the brains behind "The Usual Suspects" and "The X-Men" with the writer of "Quiz Show" and "Homicide: Life On the Streets"? Aside from a lotta smarts, you'd get House, the best new show since "Lost." [16 Nov 2004, p.91]

This new phase takes the show from sometimes cartoonish to serious, punctuated with belly-laugh dialogue. This is thanks, in no small part, to Michael J. Fox, who is in six episodes this year.

So what is there to like about this show? The same thing there was to like about "The Sopranos" and "The Shield" - great writing, insanely good acting, deeply troubled and deeply layered characters and a plot that will keep you glued to your seat.

If you love a big, seriously politically incorrect, brilliantly funny show that delivers belly laughs of the "South Park" quantity, then this one's for you.

Happily, "Weeds" hasn't dropped a petal or missed even a beat this season.

A show so unusual in its format and plot that it will rival both "Lost" and "24" in creativity and "The O.C." in its character development.

Maddening and exciting.

As good and as riveting as the high school football-as-soap-opera show has been in the past, this season is even better.

Fey's back to her day job tonight and 30 Rock is as funny as ever, as cynical as we hoped, and as fresh as if it were a freshman show.

Not only the funniest new show this season, but the strangest one since "Get A Life."

"Elizabeth I" soars on every level from the writing, to the directing to the acting.

It's not only laugh-out-loud-until-soda-squirts-out-of-your-nose funny, but it's also perfectly cast.

As profane as "Deadwood" and as profound as "The Sopranos," the series strikes every right chord.

Everyone is spectacular, even the secondary players like Leonard Armond Robinson as Mickey Rivers, who steals more scenes than bases, and Erik Jensen, who so underplays Munson that he's mesmerizing - and, most especially, Michael Rispoli, who plays Jimmy Breslin - or should I say becomes Breslin? Don't miss it. Just great.

The Tudors, Showtime's all-of-the-above series, comes roaring back Sunday night as fresh as its first season.

Showtime's glorious, gorgeous "The Tudors" is the best series since "The Sopranos." Period.

The dialog is crisply Pileggi, natch, but it's the flavor of South Beach, the most exciting American city in the 1990's (before the tourists realized that it was safe to go back in the water) that's captured precisely.

Disturbing, sober and flawless.

If the "opening statements" don't have you on the floor calling for a back brace--because you've thrown your spine out from laughing--then you are either in a coma or watching a different channel.

Was it worth the wait? Are you kidding me? Does London Fog make raincoats?

Combs does a great, great job--especially for someone who isn't known as an actor. And the rest of this cast glows. Don't miss it--and don't let your kids miss it either.

I just finished watching screener episodes of Romano's new show, Men Of A Certain Age, which he created with "Everybody Loves Raymond" writer Mike Royce, and I'm blown away.

As important as those set battles scenes are to the series, they are blended beautifully with the bravery, frailties, strength and weaknesses of the actual people involved.

I will tell you that Lange and Barrymore deserve Emmys as does the production, which is so authentic you can see the real silk char meuse oozing off socialite shoulders.

To paraphrase one of the great ads from the glory days: Between love and Mad Men lies obsession.

These killers are more fun than a cemetery full of psycho zombie killers on Halloween.

It's hilarious and even funnier this year than last.

In the weeks ahead, there is a tremendous amount of not-to-be-missed drama--including the area's first face transplant.

Treme is like Cajun food--it's spicy, it's weird and it's good, but it takes a while to appreciate.

It looks like AMC is three-for-three with their newest original drama, Rubicon, a throwback espionage thriller that takes place in the present--if the present were more like the 1970s than the 2000s.

It's every bit as good as "The Sopranos" was in its prime.

Unlike a few characters in seasons one and two whose lives I just wasn't interested in, I won't be skipping any therapy sessions this season. They are all fascinating.

The Lebowitz film, Public Speaking, directed by Martin Scorsese and produced by Graydon Carter--combines hilarious, contemporary interviews with Lebowitz about life in NYC, mixed with old clips of her in the Andy Warhol days, and great clips of her appearances on old talk shows.

The instant chemistry among the three judges was so right, they couldn't have created it in a lab. Everything that made us fall in love with Idol in the first place was back.

It's all as addictive as an uber-fresh, ice-cold slice of watermelon on one of the hills of Rome in the scorching heat.

The miniseries--starring Greg Kinnear as JFK, Barry Pepper as Bobby, Katie Holmes as Jacqueline and Tom Wilkinson as Joseph Sr.--is without a doubt one of the best, most riveting, historically accurate dramas about a time and place in American history that has ever been done for TV.

Will Big Love go out with a big bang? If the final season's opener is any indication, the answer is a big "yes."

A bleak, slow-moving, humorless show that is still so good that you will be angry every time an episode ends.

If you're not a big fan of Gaga, or even if you think she's Madonna lite, this HBO concert film will make you a true believer--or a believer, at any rate.

The series seamlessly moves between the horrors of war and the gentility of life in the show's titular 100-room manor.

Not only is it really well thought out, but the good-looking kids in the show can actually act.

Sounds boring, but it's anything but.

The Game is worth it. Really.

Each week, the series takes on a Holmes classic, updates it, turns it on its ear and leaves you breathless.

You'll be happy to know that at least as far as the first two episodes go (90 -minute season premiere this Sunday night), the show is better than ever--which would have seemed impossible.

The producers of Work of Art have managed to take something that is never a big draw (excuse the unintentional cheesy pun), art, and have made it into something so enlightening and, yes, exciting that it's positively magical.

Showtime's edgy, edge-of-your-seat series, is, bar none, the best thriller on American TV.

This engagingly uncomfortable series is not like anything you've seen before.

An intriguing, well-done documentary.

It is so crisp and clean and the clarity is so great that you will definitely forget that what you are watching is real.

It's the possibility of unlimited complications looming that make it so insanely riveting.

With an impossibly good cast, writing so spot-on it's poetic, and slow-build stories, I, for one, was left wanting more--even after watching the entire season.

Frozen Planet [is] perhaps the single greatest accomplishment in nature TV history.

They've added a new element that makes it something I can finally (I'm sorry) sink my teeth into. They've added politics as blood sport.

By episode three, things are roiling up and rolling around.

A hilarious new sitcom about a female vice president of the United States, Selina Meyer, played with insanely good timing by Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

It's one heckuva fascinating look into a world and a culture with which most of us have little or no experience.

Without a doubt, Homeland is the best drama on TV right now.

Nashville is arguably the best-written new TV series of the fall season.

A show that manages year after year to accomplish that rare blend of Hollywood darling and fan favorite.

It just feels like nothing else you've seen on TV.

Happily, they are not your average sitcom weirdo crazy group-therapy people. These folks are oddballs, yes, but they are oddballs trying to overcome great tragedy.

The Walking Dead, the flat-out scariest, best, most unusual show to ever hit the small screen, is back, and I'm loving every sickening minute of it.

Not as much sex as you may be used to, but plenty of action, and enough complexities to keep geeks, geniuses and fans glued to the strange and wonderful world of the Seven Kingdoms all spring.

Even though we all know what happens, somehow in the hands of these magnificent women, you'll be wishing and hoping for a different ending.

If you weren't born when the Stones broke all the rules, you will get to see why these old guys were/are the greatest of all time. If you were around then you already know, but you still won't believe it.

By the second part of this excellent thriller you won't know who are the bad guys and who are the really bad guys, which is how it's supposed to be.

This six-part series is so layered and unexpected that nothing follows a tried-and-true formula.... This is great TV.

Mirren and Pacino are fantastic, and Tambor rightfully underplays the larger-than-life Cutler, who rivals Spector himself.

Although it's been described by other critics as a cop version of "The Sopranos," I don't see it. The only similarities are the fact that the lead characters are unlikely sex symbols, and on both shows you've got a bad guy with a heart somewhere in there...So why is this still any good? Because Chiklis is so good, because the writing is very good, and the cast has actors other than great-looking Gen Xers who look like they fell out of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

It's excellent on every level.

Happily for you, when you see what each of those truly terrible characters is up to this year, your hair will stand on end like an FDLS lady with a sugar-water-stiffened 'do. It's so much more satisfying than a pizza and a night at the Bada Bing

As usual, high-voltage drama ensues, including a big tear-down when one designer is given the completely wrong measurements for the model who will wear his gown.

"Daniel" is not that controversial, but is really pretty damned, oops, darned good.

A really good, really weird show.

Not only an important series, but a darned good, action-packed one.

Huge fun and - if at all possible - almost as nerve-wracking as "Idol."

If "Runaway" is a harbinger of things to come, it, er, harbinges very well indeed!

Despite the fact that it revolves around standard-issue teens with troubled, rich parents, it pushes the formula a few steps . . . make that several steps farther.

While tonight's premiere episode is good, the show really sprouts wings and flies in episode two.

The writing is so good, so clean and understated that it's a pleasure to behold.

The writing's crisp and the acting is first-rate.

A terrifically cast, intriguing series.

Kalyan, Byrd and Duncan will make you laugh out loud they are so good. And being standouts here is almost impossible because it's so well done.

In their own bizarre way each episode is very American, very naive and very full of hope. Oh, yeah - and a lot of laughs, too.

Watch for the smart dialogue and the sweep of historical events. But mostly watch for Keaton in a career-best performance. You won't forget it.

The acting is as good as you'll see on TV (take a hard look at the genius of RJ Mitte, who really does have CP). And the script and plot are as out-there as creator/writer/producer Vince Gilligan's other series, "The X-Files."

If you thought "Tropic Thunder" was the funniest movie of the year and that everything Will Ferrell touches makes you laugh until you squirt Diet Pepsi out of your nose, then you will love Eastbound & Down.

Every character is unique - but almost none compares in strangeness to Bobby Munson (Mark Boone, Jr.), a Jewish killer/gang member/Elvis impersonator. Yes, I love this show.

A very funny comedy.

Huge, a new series about overweight teens at a weight-loss camp, starts tonight, and I couldn't be happier if I'd just discovered calorie-free potato chips.

It's funny, it's vicious, it's politically incorrect--in other words, everything that "Community" wants to be and isn't.

Jay returned with that smart and smartass mix of talent and controversy that separates the pros from the bores.

Thorne: Sleepyhead, has enough twists, turns, red herrings and multi-layered narrative to keep you couch-bound for its entire two hours.

Don't miss a minute of it. Finally, a reality show that delves into a world of fantasy.

If "Walking Dead" weren't alive, up and taking a vacation to generate new blood, Steven Spielberg's Falling Skies would be the best current sci-fi series on TV.