This is TV as great modern literature, a shattering and heartbreaking urban epic about a city (Baltimore) rotting from within.

From the edge of your seat, you wonder if they can possibly keep topping themselves. Based on the first two episodes, the answer is a resounding and brilliant yes.

For those who prefer a more riveting, nail-biting variety of TV, one of cable's darkest masterpieces of mayhem is back after a long absence, having lost none of its sinister allure in its fourth season.

Was it worth the wait? Was it ever!

One of TV’s boldest and best dramas.

Louie isn't exactly what you'd call a joy ride, but there's joy to be had in its pungent authenticity, the element so sorely lacking in Anger Management.

The only bleak aspect to this miniseries is that it doesn't last forever.

The return of the two-time Emmy winning best drama instantly eclipses the rest of summer TV with its dazzling wit, its posh mid-'60s style and its timelessly provocative substance.

Watching Downton Abbey is like curling up with a really satisfying book, and I can't think of a better way to get through one of the crueler months of winter. This is one of those shows that after finishing it, I immediately began to envy those who had yet to experience the pleasure.

Shows like Homeland have a way of keeping us deliciously off balance. Can't think of a place I'd rather be or a show I'd more highly recommend.

Buoyed by the effortless charisma of Timothy Olyphant's star turn as the laconic but lethal Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, this series is a twisted triumph.

Three scintillating new Sherlock brain-teasers.

A fourth season of wryly amusing but often shockingly brutal backwoods mayhem.

So far (judging from the first four episodes), it's living up to our highest expectations.

An endlessly fascinating seven-part foray into the most remote and unforgiving regions of the Arctic and Antarctic.

The stakes couldn’t be higher, or the drama more compelling. Breaking Bad is back, badder and better than ever.

I didn’t know how 24 could top last season, but so far it’s working. And the edge of my seat is already frayed.

It raises its emotional game almost instantly, as Alicia (the enigmatic and compellingly subtle Julianna Margulies) makes a fateful choice between her disgraced husband Peter (Chris Noth) and amorous boss Will (Josh Charles), though the decision is clouded by another character's manipulative deceit.

HBO's brilliant and bleak The Wire may have saved the best for last.

Surreal and harrowing.

This instantly captivating period piece feels thrillingly modern as it captures with remarkable detail a chaotic time of invention and re-invention, of social progress and prosperity upstaged by the gaudy corruption and jazzy debauchery of the Prohibition era.

Once you get back in the rhythm of this enthrallingly sprawling, lusty and brutal saga, flaunting enough sex and violence to make a Hobbit faint, it's impossible not to succumb to Thrones' visceral, dark magic.

That's Mad Men in a woozy nutshell: intoxicating, sophisticated, demanding, uncompromising and always seductively satisfying. Even after a stupefying 17-month absence that somehow hasn't dampened our ardor for this one-of-a-kind series.

It's a brisk, naughty little show, among the freshest of genre parodies. Despite its vintage look, Archer feels very modern.

This show delivers the dramatic goods with painstaking authenticity each week, and even when it isn’t trying to make you cry, you can’t help but get emotionally involved in the lives of these instantly recognizable and compelling characters.

A feast for the senses and a gritty tribute to the soul and irresistible culture of a mighty city, this series is a pungent slice of New Orleans life, set in the aftermath of Katrina. This show sings, and it cooks with all creative burners firing on high.

Lena Dunham's brilliantly raw and raunchy Girls [is] a true breakthrough series.

AMC's dazzling Mad Men, returning this weekend for a third season of rich and provocative drama poised at the brink of cataclysmic cultural change.