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.