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]

It's a heck of a show.

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]

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.

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

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

Color me confused on the concept. Are 20-somethings supposed to like this show? Good luck with those archaic pop culture references (Molly Hatchet, Carter/Mondale). Teen-agers? Sure - let them see that high school was just as vicious 20 years ago...Freaks and Geeks recalls a time a lot of viewers would rather forget. [25 Sept 1999, p.E1]

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.

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]

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.

Unlike the previous Hanks-Spielberg efforts, each of these men is really on his own journey, and the changing shift of focus doesn’t help us build affection for the characters, either. The other problem with “The Pacific” is not really its doing. We’re in two wars now; comprehending a third seems a tall order for most people.

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

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.

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.

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]

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.

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

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

Those who accept it for what it is--a funny, manipulative soap that relies on historical upheaval to frame its scarce plots--should be happy to hear that Downton’s new season is better than its last.

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

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

I know there are a lot of people out there who can’t get enough of it, all the irritation and the narcissism and the racial tension and the yelling. But I’m not one of those people....Curb Your Enthusiasm leaves me just...well, a little bored.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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]

“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.

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.

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

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.

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

[A] smart espionage drama.

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.

A lightly subversive sitcom set in modern-day Wisconsin.

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

If [Sorkin] intends to preach off-key sermons every week, “Studio 60” is going to get old fast.

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

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

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]

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 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.

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.

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]

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!”.

I worry about Chuck. I see it moldering before my eyes. And it’s nobody’s fault

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

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.

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

An out-of-the-gate triumph.

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

How it all goes awry is the question that provides Caprica with its ripe potential. Unfortunately, a serious storytelling mistake in the early going has left me with doubts about whether it has the wherewithal to get there.

Rocha, combined with the new format of The Face, creates a real threat to the Tyra empire.... [But] The Face, with a focus on posing, strutting and styling in its first few weeks, has room to fall.

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

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

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.

An example of the pay cable channel at its finest.

Whether Chance has any actual superpowers might be a point worth debating if watching Human Target weren’t so much fun.

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.

"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.

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.

A viewer-friendly diversion.

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

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

It will take awhile to figure out whether Sons of Anarchy was worth the investment of our time.

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]

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.

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

A good, potentially great, show.

Given the rather sophisticated allegorical treatments that TV audiences have been treated to in recent years courtesy of “Battlestar Galactica,” “The 4400” and the like, I find V’s first episode falling short, other than a fairly obvious allusion to Hitler Youth in the aliens’ outreach to teens.

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]

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]

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

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.

In the tradition of "The Day After" and "My So-Called Life" comes The Big C, an important show premiering Monday that's not necessarily a great show.

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

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

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

“Prison Break” could be the fall’s breakout hit, but only if other actors can bail out Miller.

Monday’s premiere was one of the most nearly perfect half-hours of television I’ve ever seen.... [But] I can’t imagine tuning in “The Colbert Report” four nights a week just to watch a caricature.

In other words, don’t hate it immediately just because it isn’t “Curb,” because if you love “Curb” you might eventually like Bored to Death.

The one thing “Sleeper Cell” does commendably is to suggest that there is a struggle going on for the soul of Islam, and that al-Qaida does not have the only say in the matter. But that message is swamped by predictable thriller filler and cheap production values.

As someone who’s on the fence about Silverman — I get what she’s doing, but I’m not sure it’s worth the adoration it often receives — I found myself chuckling more when I went through my notes on the first two shows than when I was watching them.

There’s no doubt Life is blessed with a fine lead actor, an intriguing premise and better writing than most new shows this fall. It’s just that viewers aren’t going to find that promising TV drama buried underneath all the crime procedural.

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

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

Compelling. [20 Sept 2002, p.E1]

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

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

My hope is that True Blood will get all of this tub-thumping out of the way in a few weeks and start its tremendous potential as an ensemble drama with hints of comedy.

It works because the three regulars--Zach Braff, Donald Faison and especially John McGinley--are all over these episodes, and the four newcomers are kept in their place.

Unfortunately, whoever developed this show couldn't trust the audience to accept Piper Perabo's character as strong enough to get out of a pickle or two without male intervention. I won't reveal how, because the first episode is otherwise very enjoyable, thanks to a solid supporting cast including "O.C." dad Peter Gallagher, Kari Matchett and former WB/UPN heartthrob Christopher Gorham.

If Grey's Anatomy falls short of being the next "ER," it's because it's too slickly produced. It comes with the kind of heart-tugging music and exquisitely lighted contemplative moments you might expect to see on, say, "The O.C." But the writing and acting, if not the staging, helped pull me through surgery. [26 March 2005, p.E3]

The Lost Valentine ultimately succeeds for two reasons: It is an engaging if somewhat convoluted little yarn. And White takes emotional command of the movie.