Paxton's supported by a vast cast of vivid characters waging holy battle while chasing the almighty dollar. [11 Jan 2010, p.41]

A looser show [than The Office], another comedy of frustration, but with a feckless sweetness (which is exactly what My Name Is Earl lacks). [17 Oct 2005, p.39]

[A] delicious over-the-top comedy. [2 Oct 2006, p.45]

This could be the fall's finest drama. [9 Oct 2006, p.41]

An explosion of fireworks. [1 May 2006, p.39]

If you want edge, here's Dexter. [9 Oct 2006, p.41]

The tone here can be offputtingly strange: brittle, flinty yet over the top. [20 Feb 2006, p.37]

The relationship of saint to sinner has seldom been so moving. [26 Feb 2007, p.39]

The show falls prey to a faint preciousness in the voiceover narration from its correspondents and host Glass. They overarticulate the ironies instead of just letting you watch. Which you should do. Watch. [26 Mar 2007, p.37]

Eclipsing even last summer's BBQ bacchanal involving an ancient spirit, the new season feels like one big undead sex party-a kinky alternate lifestyle where vampires and monsters do the nasty (and other violent acts) in roadhouses, backrooms, backwoods and the occasional antebellum mansion.

It's the jungle version of Saving Private Ryan's opening battle, over and over across 10 hours. Why, then, is this so excitingly powerful instead of just numbing? Because the stakes are huge: The historical momentum pulls you in and drags you along.

Season 4 launches with an episode focused on TV's most mysterious ad executive-and since Jon Hamm's watchful yet charismatic performance makes the show tick, that's excellent.

Awesomely clever, it's the Inception of sitcoms. In season 2 the show has preserved its core concept of friendships in a community-college study group while piling on daringly odd jobs. [6 Dec 2010, p.49]

This remains far and away the best prime-time sitcom: crisp and farcical, but very kind. [25 Oct 2010, p.37]

The show promises to be sexy fun. [6 Sep 2010, p.47]

The show is gorgeously produced and spectacularly violent but its success depends chiefly on Buscemi....A brilliant, brutally funny performance. [20 Sep 2010, p.51]

Here's one of the most offbeat new shows of the new season. Also one of the best. [13 Sep 2010, p.48]

A zombie-apocalypse fantasy set in Atlanta, this is the scariest series U've ever seen. [8 Nov 2010, p.39]

The show is cluttered with cutesy sidekicks, including Gabourey Sidibe as a student and John Benjamin Hickey as Cathy's homeless brother. But Linney's a big deal. [30 Aug 2010, p.37]

Fall's best new sitcom has the manic zip of Malcolm in the Middle and the diabolical humor of raising Arizona. [27 Sep 2010, p.55]

Migrations' animals provide a humbling lesson in resilience and determination. [15 Nov 2010, p.44]

Regina King heads the solid ensemble. these folks are dutiful, proud and bonetired. [10 Jan 2011, p.40]

As police superintendent Teresa Colvin, Jennifer Beals gives a revelatory, no-nonsense performance that should make Tom Selleck's mustache bristle with envy....This should be lots of fun. [7 Feb 2011, p.39]

Denis Leary's superb comedy-drama about New York City firefighters, will end its seven-year run a few days before the 10th anniversary of 9/11. [15 Aug 2011, p.34]

Parks, in a sense, is Li'l Sebastian: shaggy, small-boned, charming and lovably stupid. [31 Jan 2011, p.39]

Beneath the grit, this is a tale of chivalry. [31 Jan 2011, p.40]

The Show has evolved into a modern underworld Western--there's nothing else like it. [18 Jul 2011, p.41]

Season 3 of Showtime's great Nurse Jackie brings romance to student nurse Zoey. [25 Apr 2011, p.44]

What's amazing is how quickly it all falls into place--the show goes like a shot. [25 Apr 2011, p.43]

This is an epic portrait of a woman who's monumentally single-minded yet uncomprehending, and watching her rise and fall inspires a sick awe. [4 Apr 2011, p.50]

The photography is sweepingly gorgeous--this must be the best of all possible planets. [18 Apr 2011, p.46]

When The Close comes to a close, we'll lose one of the best TV detectives of the past decade. [11 Jul 2011, p.33]

Can. Not. Wait. [9 Apr 2012, p.39]

In season 2 of PBS's richly clever Sherlock, the Victorian tales have been refitted to our century. [14 May 2012, p.44]

Gellar commands every scene. Hers is a true, potent star turn. [12 Sep 2011, p.43]

[A] taut, ingenious spy series. [10 Oct 2011, p.44]

Prohibition is a merry, bullet-sprayed study of the era's rampant criminality. [10 Oct 2011, p.40]

Beautifully filmed, George Harrison: Living in the Material World is especially good on the singer-guitarist's post-Beatles life as he sought enlightenment in Eastern religions. [10 Oct 2011, p.40]

The show still tends to go suddenly flat--it's hard to tell whether the party is supposed to be dead or it's just incompetently staged--but Hamm is always superb as Don. [2 Apr 2012, p.37]

It's mesmerizing. [26 Mar 2012, p.44]

The jokes take of on all sorts of unexpected trajectories--foul balls that score. [12 Mar 2012, p.45]

The first three episodes are full of impressively strong criminals. [23 Jan 2012, p.40]

NBC hasn't had a show this impressive since the first season of Heroes. [6 Feb 2012, p.39]

The scares are not as over-the-top as American Horror Story but more chilling because they're applied glancingly. [13 Feb 2012, p.44]

Falco's performance never loses a weary, trudging toughness and, at the core two hard kernels of anger and sorrow. [16 Apr 2012, p.50]

It's a raw, ironic, occasionally touching comedy of post-millennial manners. [23 Apr 2012, p.37]

The show hasn't lost its clever agility at building pressure-cooker suspense and then lobbing in a surprise. [8 Oct 2012, p.55]

Nashville is the best new show of the fall. [29 Oct 2012, p.37]

These are almost closer to short stories than sitcom episodes--and yes, they're fantastic. [23 Jul 2012, p.38]

Bad has taken the complexity of modern television storytelling to new levels. [23 Jul 2012, p.37]

They're delightful. [26 Nov 2012, p.48]

The game changer sets season 7 on an exciting new course. [8 Oct 2012, p.60]

Put his [Bobby Cannavale's] floridness up against Buscemi's poker-faced acidity and you get fireworks. [24 Sep 2012, p.57]

There's event television, and there's Game of Thrones. [8 Apr 2013, p.41]

If the Granthams are low on dough, emotionally they're richer than ever. [14 Jan 2013, p.51]

The heartbreak here--especially the cases of poor children who died of "dust pneumonia"--is tremendous. [26 Nov 2012, p.45

The two hours available for review are cinematically rich, full of sleek, oily pools of darkness. [11 Feb 2013]

What gives the show its kick is the gleefully childish lack of repentance shown by most of these rascals--countered by Olyphant's coolly amused control. [4 Feb 2013, .39]

The show is an absolute original. [28 Jan 2013, p.44]

Discovery's Africa is yet another marvel of high-definition photography. [14 Jan 2013, p.56]

NBC's best new drama since forever. [15 Apr 2013]

This haunting New Zealand miniseries boasts a strong, tense performance from Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss as a detective, but it's very much the work of director Jane Campion. [25 Mar 2013, p.44]

Predictably awesome. [27 May 2013, p.42]

The animated duo have returned, as dumb--and hilarious--as ever. [31 Oct 2011, p.36]

The series' sixth season begins with an intensely entertaining four-hour, two-night premiere. [15 Jan 2007, p.33]

After two flabby seasons, the Fox action series is back in bang-up shape. [25 Jan 2010, p.41]

[It] remains a nervily ambiguous concept. [18 Jun 2007, p.37]

Entourage remains supremely good-natured. [19 Jun 2006, p.37]

The series' grim tone and overall look of a grimy world in perpetual need of dusting or wiping is a long way from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and closer to Japanese movies like The Grudge. [12 Sep 2005, p.45]

Andy's humiliations as a minor celebrity aren't quite as funny as was his earlier shame at being a nobody, but as a satire of showbiz vanity, Extras can still be described as (what else?) stellar. [29 Jan 2007, p.43]

It's the best new sitcom of the fall. [16 Oct 2006, p.39]

[It] looks like Sex and the City relocated to Northern Exposure. [18 Sep 2006, p.39]

[Driver's] tone gets under the skin. As does the show. [19 Mar 2007, p.39]

Gabriel Byrne plays the part flawlessly, and he's up against tow especially rewarding talents. [1 Nov 2010, p.42]

The high school musical comedy occasionally flies off the rails. But maybe that's to be expected from this aggressively inventive pop fantasy. [1 Nov 2010, p.41]

In its second season, the high school musical comedy occasionally flies off the rails...But maybe that's to be expected from this aggressively inventive pop fantasy, where mundane details like homework never matter. [1 Nov 2010, p.41]

Co-created by David Simon and Eric Over­myer, the team behind The Wire, this is a lovingly textured, slowly unfolding series set in post-Katrina New Orleans. [26 Apr 2010, p.40]

West Wing politico Bradley Whitford reinvents himself for this entertaining free-for-all, a loose blend of buddy comedy and police action that's also an affectionate nod to series like Starsky & Hutch.

Olyphant plays this laconic, loping lawman with a smiling minimalism that makes Givens both iconic and contemporary.

Challenging but engrossing.

It's very entertaining in its low-key, waist-widening ways. [20 Dec 2010, p.44]

Melissa McCarthy and Billy Gardell star in a sweet, old-fashioned sitcom. [Sep 27 2010, p.55]

The formula still works. The Real Housewives of DC wasn't any fun, but the new Beverly Hills chapter delivers. [18 Oct 2010, p.37]

Therapist Paul Weston a human-shaped cloud who grumbles with the low thunder of the maladjusted, has drifted back for a gripping new season of HBO's In Treatment. Gabriel Byrne plays the part flawlessly, and he's up against two especially rewarding talents. [1 Nov 2010, p.42]

The first few nights showed O'Brien settling in with his charmingly original humor, which is sophisticated yet twerpily silly. [29 Nov 2010, p.41]

Mad Love [is] a relationship sitcom with real chemistry. [21 Feb 2011, p.41]

In its second season, the spy parody remains my favorite animated series, thanks to its retro visual design--this is a cartoon for the age of Mad Men--and the vicious, dead-aim put-downs that make up most of the dialogue. [14 Mar 2011, p.42]

Luckily Blood is still buoyed by its weird, Gothic zest and the performers all operate with the same vibe of ripe sexuality and restrained camp. [4 Jul 2011, p.37]

[A] fascinating reality hit. [28 Mar 2011, p.57]

Reubens is getting a bit old for this, but Pee-wee's innocence, infantilism and camp haven't dated--there's a rebel in the ridiculousness. [21 Mar 2011, p.46]

It takes awhile to adjust to the dissonance, but the muted naturalism of the superb cast draws us in. [9 May 2011, p.40]

The show is a trampoline that sags clear down to the ground, the better to catapult you off into the air. [18 Jul 2011, p.35]

The only disappointment is the werewolf makeup, minimal enough that Posey could still blend in at the mall. [13 Jun 2011, p.48]

What's surprising and even touching is that Fergie may not be a hot mess, but she's an appealingly human one. [20 Jun 2011, p.47]

This fall sitcom is a hit entirely because of Deschanel's performance as Jess. [7 Nov 2011, p.41]

The girls' chemistry should keep the show breakdown free. [19 Sep 2011, p.59]

The show's many subplots are handled clumsily, but these two [Grammer & Nielsen] are too good to pass up. 25 Oct 2011, p.48]

It's funny and moves blindingly fast, barely giving you time to blink or gulp--Dark Shadows for the PlayStation age. [10 Oct 2011, p.39]