In season 3, the show perfected its approach to good old-fashioned suspense, added some terrific characters to its great core cast and its queasy moral quandaries became ever more compelling and addictive. At this point, it's just not possible to look away.

The trick for Justified in its second season won't necessarily revolve around balancing standalone and serialized stories: The show seems to have a good handle on how to manage that in the early going of season 2. No, the challenge will be giving all of its characters something worthwhile to do while expanding the worlds of Harlan and Lexington even further.

Dating, working, friendship, the mixed bag of wonderfulness and tedium that is raising kids--all of these things clearly take up a huge amount of real estate in Louis C.K.'s mind, and watching him tenaciously sort through his reactions to challenges in those arenas is always interesting, occasionally profound and frequently funny.

The storytelling by executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and their writing staff is increasingly assured and judicious; the first-rate cast continues to mine the full depth of the material; and the show itself is visually commanding, especially in the hands of Alan Taylor, who directed the first two episodes of the season.

All in all, this season premiere allows fans to marinate in the world of the characters for two hours.

Justified doesn't come close to losing control of its narrative.

Smash elegantly and energetically draws you into the orbit of a dozen dreamers and schemers at various stages in their Great White Way careers, and, like a true pro, the show makes it all look easy.

I just want my favorite shows to be able to break my heart, and the more broadly Game of Thrones ranges and the longer its cast list grows, the tougher it will be for the drama to do that. It's impossible not to be drawn into the saga, however (aside from one or two strands that are filler and/or confusingly laid out).

The lovely thing about Justified is that it delivers all the shaggy charm of a diverting character piece even as a supple, strongly structured story gives the whole affair an unmistakable energy and direction.

All in all, the show is much better than it was when it was rotely doing “ripped from the headline” stories, which was only a few seasons ago.

The David of Curb is so scathingly direct that he’s also quite funny; half the time he’s just saying things that the rest of us are too polite or repressed to say.

The solidly entertaining season premiere of The Office is of a piece with last season's better episodes.

Amid the emotional crescendoes of the final hour (which the cast pulls off beautifully), in the pell-mell race to the finish line, there is some rushed storytelling and there are more than a few gaps in logic. But aside from those issues, Children of Earth is, as the Brits would say, bloody brilliant.

This year, the challenge is to create fresh, interesting story lines for new and returning high school characters, integrate the post-high school crowd into the show and mix the stories of the East Dillon team with those of the Panther players. It’s a tall order, but in the early going, the show seems up to it.

Seeing all these top-flight actors respond to the tautness and the challenges of this material--and they do get their share of emotionally charged scenes--well, it’s like Christmas.

It’s difficult not to follow Weston and his new array of patients this season, especially when the compelling Byrne shares the screen with seasoned actors such as John Mahoney, who plays Walter, an arrogant CEO suffering from insomnia, and Hope Davis, who plays Mia, a brittle Manhattan attorney who blames Weston, who treated her when she was in her 20s, for the problems that plague her two decades later.

Watching Burn Notice and eating candy--it’s getting hard to tell the difference between the two.

Morrow is either a dinosaur on the way out or the rock-solid leader the club needs in treacherous times. It's to the show's credit that both descriptions have a certain amount of validity, and I found myself alternately applauding Jax's newfound boldness and regretting his youthful heedlessness.

So is this complex and intriguing film worth watching, knowing that the questions that percolate through it will likely never be answered? The answer is yes, if you’re a sci-fi buff and/or a fan of the show’s creators, Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor, who are veterans of the acclaimed “Battlestar Galactica.”

What's refreshing about the new season is that it's not necessarily about the objects, which are, after all, a series of MacGuffins. More than ever, what grounds the whole enterprise are the bonds among the characters and the dangers that they face together, armed only with retro-looking pistols and the requisite quips.

The half-hour format is perfect for this deftly directed program, which is character-based storytelling concentrated to espresso strength.

The pilot for this drama is good. I have a few quibbles with it--some of the character drama is a bit clunky--but overall, I found the first hour of the show to be solidly entertaining and suitably suspenseful.

There is bitterness aplenty, but Party Down didn’t create these characters simply to mock them. There is also bittersweet sadness lurking behind these droll, incisive portraits of failure and self-deception.

One of the best parts of the show is Alicia’s complicated relationship with her husband, who humiliated his family with a sex scandal but also appears to be a pawn in a larger game being played by high-level politicians.

This season, Ted seems to have a looser, even goofier vibe, and it plays to its actors' strengths more consistently while also giving plenty of screen time to my favorite characters, insecure research scientists Phil (Jonathan Slavin) and Lem (Malcolm Barrett).

The shaggily delightful dialogue, the deft pacing, the authentic sense of place, the rock-solid supporting cast and the feeling that you are in the hands of writers, actors and directors who really know what they're doing--all of these are worthy reasons to watch Justified.

There's still something winning and relevant about their particular blend of cluelessness and surprisingly sharp commentary.

This year, there’s much more of the loopy, creative humor that its fans have come to know and love.