The Shield" also features heart-stopping action scenes, the steady backbeat of its addictive soundtrack and highly entertaining chatter. The combined effect will kick down your door. [12 Mar 2002, p.E1]

This show has great casting, comedy that crackles and characters who show signs of actually possessing some depth to them. These are rare qualities for any TV show, which is why I ranked it my second-favorite new series of the fall. [22 Sept 2003, p.E8]

“Everybody Hates Chris” is one of those rare nostalgia shows that doesn’t patronize childhood.

An out-of-the-gate triumph.

Hilarious, delightful and smart... "Eureka" may have the gumption to become the best sci-fi show since the late lamented “Farscape.”

Since CBS doesn’t want us to see "Kid Nation" in advance, I guess I’ll just have to declare Kitchen Nightmares the best new reality show of the fall.

Reaper is remarkably well-paced and hilariously well-written.

Once again Simon and his producing partner, Ed Burns, plunge us deeply into the culture of foul-mouthed men, many of them barely out of their teens, who have ready access to firearms and agendas that have little to do with the American dream that you and I understood growing up. And, as before, you can’t stop watching it.

It's a heck of a show.

Justified is one of those programs where, when you get done with the three review episodes FX sends you, you're angry because you know FX could've sent more episodes if it wanted to.

Each person in the ensemble is distinct and intriguing. This show is loaded with possibilities.[20 Sept 2002, p.E1]

Compelling. [20 Sept 2002, p.E1]

What a pleasure to find a woman who doesn't need to karate chop some no-neck to prove she's in charge. [27 Sept 2003]

Hugh Laurie is simply brilliant as the sarcastic, Vicodin-popping, cane-clutching healer in House. You want to see a heroic doctor? Go watch Matthew Fox save an island on "Lost." Want to see a terrific performance by a comedic actor who may singlehandedly save the medical drama? Here's your guy. [16 Nov 2004, p.E3]

What makes Boomtown so immediately interesting is that each of these people is treated like a main character, at least for a few moments. Rather than the standard objective, all-seeing-all-knowing camera, this show teases the viewer by using several highly subjective cameras, including some trained on bit players. I've seen this verite approach in documentaries, but this is the closest any fictional drama has come to approximating the effect. [28 Sept 2002, p.G1]

The result is a challenging psychological thriller within a gripping crime procedural.

A violent, hair-raising combo of “The Ring,” “War of the Worlds” and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” with a dash of official conspiracy.

This is one smart, funny comedy that deserves better than the anemic time slot it’s getting.

What makes this intriguing and ultimately irresistible serial thriller one of my favorites of the fall season are its characters.

I can’t say enough about how "Friday Night Lights" defied my expectations for what a TV show about football would be.

The first hour... hits you with a potent cocktail of action and intrigue.

You will regret tuning in even a minute late for the premiere.

It feels like Haggis and Moresco are picking up right where “EZ Streets” left off.

With all the crazy gags, pitch-perfect dialogue and a fresh hero at the center, it’s hard not to see “Andy Barker” as the spiritual successor to “Police Squad!”.

An example of the pay cable channel at its finest.

“This American Life” on TV achieves the same contemplative mood as the radio show. And it has a striking spareness of imagery, much as “Life” on radio has a spareness of sound.

Torchwood is so much more tricked-out with talent and visual wizardry, moves at such breakneck speed and makes such demands on its viewers that it leaves most American TV shows in its dust.

The results aren't much different from a video game, for the violence on Chuck is pretty cartoony, but after watching two episodes I’m hooked. This is a fun escapist show.

A great first hour gets this comedic drama off to a fine start.

A lightly subversive sitcom set in modern-day Wisconsin.

It’s definitely not the same-old same-old, for which ABC is to be congratulated.

Sharply written, compellingly acted, this is the crime procedural ABC has needed all along, one for the “Grey’s Anatomy” crowd.

After four seasons of showing us cosmetic enhancement from every conceivable angle, Nip/Tuck is ready to take its scalpel to something else: the entertainment industry. I’m not saying that it’s going to work or that Nip/Tuck's longtime fans will appreciate the gesture, but tonight’s episode introduces us to a show-within-a-show that is simply dreadful, and that alone (to this TV critic) is worth the price of admission.

As the last of my DVD screeners ended, and I found the story wrapped around me, constrictorlike, I had to agree with old Gus: It feels true. Very true.

The comedy has a loose, improvisational feel to it, but is still pretty fast-paced. And the four characters are at their funniest just in the room alone, swapping lines with each other, an experience a lot of dudes in their 20s can relate to... or so I’m told.

Things may end badly for Vic, or not, but this I know for sure: The next time The Shield cheats its viewers will be the first.

Worst Week is Rube Goldberg meets Murphy’s Law meets the parents. And it’s hysterical.

The Mentalist is safe, predictable, manufactured crime drama … and it works.

The dialogue is surprisingly fresh, even to someone who's watched way too many MTV reality shows.

I like the serious, gimmick-free approach of the show.

The secret to the show’s success is not any of the overly familiar parts, but the nutty way Leverage throws them together. Also, Hutton is a great actor who generates plenty of crackle between Nate and his fellow fleecers.

As a comedy, it’s surprisingly entertaining....But what ultimately kept me watching, through every screener Showtime provided, was this audacious bit of acting from Collette.

When Lost returns Wednesday with a thoroughly entertaining two-hour barnburner, you will want to be there.

Breaking Bad is not an easy show to watch. [But] this is the Cranston show, and for those of us who still see reruns of “Malcolm in the Middle” and the red-faced, eye-bulging slapstick that Cranston was put through on that show, he is quite a revelation on Breaking Bad.

In the end, I had to give in to sheer enjoyment. My wife and I couldn’t load the next episode into the DVD player fast enough.

The one-person-shows these recurring characters put on each week are what give In Treatment its vitality, and of course it helps that HBO can draw from top stage talent.

Rescue Me does everything “Lost” does. It balances character, drama, comedy and suspense while relentlessly pushing a dozen story lines forward.

The fourth season of Friday Night Lights (which already aired last fall on DirecTV) is as rich and dramatic and satisfying as ever.

Southland is built to be bigger, and in that sense it succeeds immediately, thanks to excellent casting (especially Michael Cudlitz and Regina King as a cop and a detective), gritty location shooting around L.A. and storytelling that doesn’t hold the viewer’s hand.

It’s an atmospheric, pinned-to-your-seat winner.

With its demented story lines, idiotic characters, out-of-control banter and fantastic send-ups of a spy genre that had seemingly been overspoofed already, Archer is destined to put another feather in the cap of FX.

It's the best drama pilot I saw over the summer.

AMC’s The Prisoner isn’t going to reinvent TV the way McGoohan’s brainchild did. For six hours, however, it’s compelling enough in its own way to make you its captive.

Not only is it funnier than its lead-in, it’s improved on its impressive (and sadly truncated) first season on ABC.

Yes, Treme is a tremendous document of the period following Katrina, how it shattered not just homes and infrastructure and tourism but, most important, families. All of that is on the surface and pretty accessible.

Whatever the reasons, True Blood has become stranger, more complicated and more satisfying to watch over time.

While capturing all this with seemingly unfettered access, Wrong finds the little dramas that provide insight into what it's like to be a resident at one of the world's premier teaching hospitals.

I'm happy to report that, much like the disembodied head of Richard Nixon (who shows up in the second episode), it's the same barrel of laughs it always was.

The indie-director touches do not narrow the appeal of Louie. It is, however, strictly for adults.

Warehouse 13 has always been a hodgepodge of other people’s ideas and gimmicks, but the magic is how they’re thrown together here.

The darker tone of Haven (including a haunting piano soundtrack) and reliance on paranormal, rather than technological, story elements form an ideal counterpoint to the wonkery of "Eureka."

It's a bright, fun little show, adhering to the formula that has worked for so many other light dramas on USA: tight writing, a little romance, whirly movement.

Ripper Street was clever enough not to hang its hat on the over-examined killings of the five Ripper victims, and clever fans of police procedurals will relish spending eight hours with cops who have to invent the crime-solving tools at their disposal.

[A] smart espionage drama.

It's safe to say you've not seen anything like it on network television. And not to put too fine a point on it, but the shock does wear off after a few minutes. [22 Sept 2004, p.F3]

Somehow it works, thanks in part to a tangled intrigue that pulls this lowly matriculator into a conspiracy of the highest order. [29 Sept 2001, p.E1]

It brings its own style of spine-tingling dysfunction to the screen.

Flawless production design and lush cinematography make Rectify visually stunning, but its simmering mystery and artfully depicted dysfunction make every scene hum with tension.

It has personality to spare, so much that you forgive it for its romantic notion that a bunch of highly paid TV people constitutes a "family." [22 Sept 1998, p.F1]

The freshest take on the single-camera mockumentary since “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

Time will tell whether this spin-off of NBC's cops-to-courts standby can lure an audience to Mondays. There's plenty here to work with. The question is, in what direction will creator Dick Wolf move it all? [20 Sept 1999, p.E1]

This behind-the-scenes look at the American presidency from the creator of "Sports Night" (Aaron Sorkin) gets off to a bumpy start tonight when viewers realize that the supposedly liberal chief executive played by Martin Sheen - who in real life is an actual fire-eating Hollywood liberal - has no minorities in his inner circle. (The first black face seen in the premiere episode is a traffic cop who pulls over one of the show's regulars.) [22 Sept 1999, p.F10]

Of all the new mystery-driven dramas aspiring to be this year’s “Lost”... “Invasion” is the most absorbing and least hokey.

The constant toing-and-froing of “Mrs. Harris” might have gotten tiresome, as an earlier HBO effort at revisionist biography, “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers,” did. Bening, though, is somehow able to conjure up a completely new mood for each time and setting.

A goofy and likable new comedy.

It’s not near HBO quality but certainly better than that “Sleeper Cell” tripe that Showtime put on last year.

It’s an ambitious and ever-shifting examination of the lack of foresight in a culture addicted to rapid change.

Heche really shines in this role.

It’s a smart series with a pacing that sometimes takes your breath away. Still, once the action pauses, will viewers want to spend time with a bunch of amoral characters?

A gripping, one-of-a-kind drama.

Sleek, action-packed and heavy on the acting talent.

A good, potentially great, show.

After the nerve-jangling first episode, I predict you’ll be hooked.

It’s a hoot.

"The Riches" reminds me a bit of "Big Love" the first time I saw it. I wasn’t sure whether to like these people or despise them, whether I bought the premise or not. And yet, at the end of the hour, I wanted to see more.

Samantha Who? actually gets better as it goes along. There’s a lot of table-setting in this first episode, but I found myself enjoying a later episode, and Applegate is a big reason why.

Once you get beyond the show’s homages, both to 1970s style and “Desperate Housewives,” this proves to be a groovy little summer soap opera.

The new version bears less of a resemblance to “ER”-styled medical drama of the 2000 “Hopkins” than it does to “The Hills,” the MTV sensation that introduced a whole new visual vocabulary to unscripted TV. The stories still involve people being treated at Hopkins, of course, but what’s striking is how much time is spent outside the hospital with the docs and their families.

Fringe does a pretty nifty job of balancing the demands of the paranormal genre against the viewer’s need for some comic relief.

I like Gary Unmarried. It’s like other sitcoms I’ve seen of late involving newly broken-up households (remember when the sitcom single dad was widowed instead of divorced?).

While I prefer the British Mars, the show's premise is so strong that this decent execution of it is hard not to recommend.

The show is entertaining enough, but the American Hood, played by Rufus Sewell, won't remind anyone of Patrick Stewart.

Surprise! It’s not nearly as bad as I thought.

Thanks to the fact that Starz is pay cable and can say and show pretty much whatever it wants, this show ramps up the dramatic tension quickly and effectively.

The latest re-imagining of Daniel Defoe’s classic tale of a man shipwrecked on an island far from home has already earned its keep.

There is a distinctly 2002 feel to this season of 24....But you know what? It all manages to hold together.

All those ingredients make for a stew that, initially anyway, needs salt....Having seen two more promising later episodes, I say give Dollhouse time. And in the meantime, enjoy the set, the so-called dollhouse.

After a nine-month hiatus, one of the best new shows of last season returns from the undead with a bit more of the deviled edge that made it so great when it first emerged from the crypt in the fall of 2007.