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.

Boston Med reminds us that truth is often much more compelling and affecting than recycled fiction. Nothing is heightened or cheapened with newsmag-style manipulation on this series.

This show earns its laughter with sharp writing, brilliant casting and characters that hit very close to home while often striking a nerve (mostly the funny bone).

The Pacific is magnificent in its visual and graphically visceral scope and shattering in its emotional, deeply personal impact.

Four seasons in, The Good Wife remains a marvel of clever plotting and tremendously witty ensemble acting.

With deft detail, and the usual sparkling mix of vivid archival footage and jazzy period music, we're treated to an evocative portrait of a young nation wracked by alcoholism and a debauched saloon culture, taking drastic measures to ban the manufacture and sale of alcohol.

This Technicolored kaleidoscope fable of life, love and perpetual whimsy restores my faith in TV's ability to amuse, enchant and entertain with endless invention and eye-popping style.

No matter the language, or the decade, AbFab lives up to its title, and its reputation.

Sherlock is the rare reinvention that's likely to enchant purists as well as those yearning for a new look at an old favorite. Should you bookmark it now on your DVR? The answer, my dear reader and viewer, is elementary.

Simply put, the journey of Battlestar Galactica is one long, exhilarating headtrip.

Will Antoine achieve his musical dream? How long can Ladonna hold onto her business when her husband and sons (and now mother) live long distance in Baton Rouge? Theirs are among the myriad stories swirling in the funky gumbo of this one-of-a-kind drama.

Exasperating but fascinating.

For those of us who hungered for a year to witness these new chapters, the appetite is insatiable.

Dexter is real, all right. Real good.

Almost the Truth (The Lawyer’s Cut) is a serious history of sublime nonsense, packaged with classic Python-esque irreverence.

Excellent questions propel us back into the world of one of TV's most uncompromising dark comedies.

Downton Abbey is like British catnip, a dazzling entertainment where saucy always trumps stuffy. It's popcorn TV with a champagne aftertaste.

Easily the best and most original entertainment too few are watching, Daisies dazzles and delights with a sensory overload of perfectly surreal whimsy that juggles screwball fairy tale, romantic comedy and mystery.

Critical without being overtly political, with stretches of boredom punctuated by the sudden chaos of firefights where it’s impossible to distinguish innocent bystanders from insurgents, Generation Kill is both timely and timeless.

This bold British import is among the best TV I've seen in a mediocre (on network TV, anyway) fall season. Fast-paced, constantly surprising and darkly entertaining, Luther is about as far as you can get from a cookie-cutter procedural.

We actually root for many of the people we find living among The Walking Dead, which packs a raw, emotional punch while delivering the creepy and queasy thrills all genre fans truly crave.

What's not to love in Friday Night Lights? This is a place, and a show, I will never want to leave. It feels like family. But we're lucky to have been given this much of their story. Underdogs to the end, these are my TV heroes.

If you can handle it, The Walking Dead is grade-A terror.

This is classic Law & Order through and through, where only the wigs worn in court and the accents are significantly different. The London environs evoke the urban New York feel, and the cast here is top-notch, refreshingly reintroducing us to the notion of a lead detective who's been around the block a few times.

I can attest there’s no such thing as too much Larry. Or, more to the point, too much Curb. Weak with laughter, I couldn’t be happier to welcome it back.

This is the best new series, network or cable, of the midseason. An immediately addictive brew of action, suspense and wry humor, the show is grounded in Olyphant's low-key but high-impact star-making performance, the work of a confident and cunning leading man who's always good company.

This is a gorgeous piece of storytelling that requires and rewards patience.

Dexter's quality has ebbed and flowed over the years (peaking in the John Lithgow season), but so far, this season is looking like a riveting winner.

Torchwood: Children of Earth is one of the TV events of the year, and anyone with a taste for serious dark fantasy is encouraged to strap in for the thrilling, chilling and unnerving ride.

This is sleek, sexy, smart, densely written and deliberately paced adult entertainment.

Rectify is touching in so many ways, and the only drawback is that six hours is not nearly enough to tell this story, with an open-ended conclusion that's more disturbing than satisfying.

This dwarf [Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage)] has game--and so does this fabulous dark fable. Dig in.

It lacks the star power (Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet) of Ang Lee's 1995 Oscar winner. But Austen's characters are so enduring and endearing in their virtues, vanities and passionate follies that they don't require movie stars to bring them to life.

Finally, cable's hit design show is back, still the best and most flamboyantly entertaining of TV's skill-based competitions.

The Hour teems with flawed but driven professionals who, even at their worst, never come off as ridiculous as Newsroom's fools' gallery. The hours just fly by

For Fringe's small but loyal following, resistance is truly futile. We'll stick with this remarkable series to the end.

John Adams, based on David McCullough's acclaimed biography, is as sumptuous and satisfying as TV gets: gorgeously produced, marvelously acted and written with a sense of high drama amid generous displays of wit.

Trust me, Damages is worth it. And for those without access to DirecTV, worth the wait.

Though the subject matter is wrenching, the tone here is more about emotional uplift, emphasizing the importance of bringing loved ones along for the fight.

Vulgar and noisy, and often disgustingly hilarious, Dead Set is the perfect pop-culture poison for those of us convinced the world of Big Brother and its spawn is an endless night of the living dead, turning participants and fans alike into craven zombies.

This sleek, sexy, smartly cynical drama about selling everything from cigarettes to Nixon also nails the era's attitudes of casual prejudice and sexual manipulation.

This is a fascinating experiment that feels like first-rate TV, and for subscribers old and (I'm betting quite a few) new, Cards is a great deal.

There's always a surprise in baseball," says one of the game's biggest fans, Boston scribe Mike Barnicle. His lifelong emotional roller-coaster as a Red Sox loyalist--years of disappointment turned to rapture by the team's 2004 World Series victory--is one of the most enjoyable narrative threads in the glorious four hours of Baseball: The Tenth Inning.

A show and a heroine larger than life, twice as colorful and infinitely more adorable.

Moving the story ahead five years didn't so much reinvent the show as it recharged and refreshed the scintillating mix of domestic comedy and sudsy intrigue that we've always enjoyed.

An electrifying military-gone-amok thriller that bridges the macho hardware of Tom Clancy with the suspense of paranoid Cold War classics from the '60s like Fail Safe and Seven Days in May.

This fall's best and most original drama taps a gusher of intrigue and twisty romance, with star-is-born James Wolk the most irresistible con man since Lost's Sawyer.

As leaps of faith go, yes. And faith--in visions both magical and musical--has everything to do with Eli Stone's divine appeal.

Graphically sexy and scary, and often wildly funny, True Blood, from Six Feet Under’s Alan Ball, turns Charlaine Harris’ rollicking mystery novels into a broadly entertaining, deliciously twisted slice of modern Southern Gothic.

Animation has rarely felt so explosively, hilariously defiant.

The second season... crackles with high drama, suspenseful twists, unexpected humor and emotion.

One of the best new comedies of the season, and an instant bright light in NBC’s much-honored lineup.

Community is undimmed in its marvelously inventive wackiness. Trippy as ever as it continues to send up sitcom conventions with surreal zeal.

The show may be titled Hannibal, which for commercial branding purposes makes complete sense, but this is Will's story. And an absorbing, psychologically rich one it is, too--immeasurably smarter than The Following, more haunting than Bates Motel.

When a new comedy shows up as fresh, original and painfully hilarious as Sons & Daughters, at first I want to cheer. And then I start to worry if it can survive. Call it Arrested Development syndrome.

Nobody said the creative process was pretty, but rarely has it made such electrifying TV.

Everything about New Girl, from her goofy costars to the distinctively quirky writing, is irresistible.

The River is a terrifying heart-stopper, a cleverly cinematic supernatural adventure that takes us on a wild ride into an exotic heart of darkness.