Brilliant, scathing, sprawling, The Wire has turned our indifference to urban decay into a TV achievement of the highest order.

Despite its depth and ambition, this is one great drama that never becomes cumbersome--it never feels like a chore imposed upon us by the God of High TV Art.

This is The Sopranos at its best -- and that's just about as good as TV ever gets.

If you look past the sometimes strained pushing of the basic cable envelope (including a completely gratuitous breast shot), The Shield offers an interesting take on a familiar subject, one that boasts a great supporting turn from CCH Pounder as a smart cop who has seen it all.[12 Mar 2002, p.10D]

There are needed bursts of humor that lighten the sometimes oppressive sense of a world on the verge of social collapse. And there's that visually pleasing re-creation of '60s style that both delights on its own and allows the show to comment through skewed reflection on modern times.

There are worse sins than looking like a Jane Austen movie. In fact, with PBS' latest British hit import, the unfailingly entertaining Downton Abbey, it might even be a blessing.

Danes and Lewis are near-flawless, keeping you off-balance and absorbed.

Like the show itself, Margo Martindale's performance is smart, chilling, amusing, convincing and unfailingly entertaining. And like the show, you really don't want to miss it.

This is TV pleasure at its most intense, without even a shade of guilt.

Of a handful of promising new series this season, only one shows the promise of greatness: Boomtown.

For all the artificiality of the language, there has seldom been a show that felt more authentic.

As you'd hope from a show based on Elmore Leonard's work, the plots snap, the dialogue crackles and--to press on with the point--the characters pop.

This is 24 at its fast, furious, exaggerated best, filled with well-drawn subsidiary characters and rapid-fire surprises, all held in place by Kiefer Sutherland's great, under-sung performance as Jack.

The Bedford Diaries... is not merely the worst show of the vernal season but one of the worst ever concocted by the soon-to-vanish WB.

While it will no doubt settle back into its normal pattern, the first two episodes have been a bit busy--and a little light on the courtroom drama side of things.

As you might expect from an experimental show that is doing its best to misbehave, there are times when Arrested goes too far. I could live without George Michael's crush on his first cousin, a story given more prominence in a future episode when it really needs less. But for now, I'd say stick with the Bluths, even when their behavior is more alarming than arresting. At least they're not dull. And this season, that's a development worth encouraging.

Six Degrees certainly clips along, but moving quickly between insipid links and boring characters doesn't make them any less insipid or boring.

There's humanity in its victims and dark humor in the goal-oriented drive of its villains. With or without a strike, this is a show to treasure.

They've richly re-created a Roaring '20s world on the edge of an ocean and a precipice, and populated it with a riveting rogues gallery.

It is, in short, a show about real life, as seen through the eyes of one of the funniest men in America.

This is a sprawling, exciting, blood-soaked story, filled with great set pieces and wonderful actors.

Expertly cut and polished until it practically gleams, 24 is like a flawless diamond: stylish, multifaceted and so sharp that it could cut glass. Everything clicks, from the hip sets to the whip-smart direction to the ever-shifting split screen that imbues even mundane activities such as talking on the phone with an unexpected urgency. [6 Nov 2001]

This is such a gorgeous show to watch (at least for anyone fond of mid-'60s clothes and design) that it's easy to forget how beautifully these actors play their roles and how true-to-life they and the writers make these characters seem.

The Sopranos would have benefited from the editing required by network time and content restraints, which would have made the rambling episodes tighter and cleared them of their worst blood and exposed-breast excesses. [8 Jan 1999, p.8E]

For all its flights of fancy and its meta-jokes (most of them ably put across by Danny Pudi), the show still allows us to invest in Joel McHale's Jeff and his journey to self-improvement. Yet in its search for a plot, Community often seems to send Jeff back to square one so he can be redeemed all over again.

Terrifically acted and gorgeously produced, this is a show that's both funny and frightening, that can simultaneously make you miss the '60s and feel blessed that they're gone.

In mere minutes and with a few instantly evocative images, Freaks draws its characters more precisely than some shows do in a season. [24 Sept 1999, p.11E]

Is Lights the show it was when it began? No. But it's still better than most anything else on the TV field.