Showtime lets them take their time to spin serpentine story lines, gradually pulling us deep into one very sticky, scary web of intrigue.

Six million zombiephiles watched the finale of the first season and those 6 million will not want to miss Sunday's opener, which is excellent and appropriately disgusting.

Even at six hours, this tends to be more impressionistic, and less bound to a strict historic timeline.

Lean, laconic, precise and as carefully word-crafted as any series on TV, there's pretty much nothing here to suggest that the third season won't be as good as the second--or better.

There are three excellent reasons--Milch, Mann and Hoffman--why your faith will be rewarded.

I've seen four episodes; they're all good.

A luminous and fully alive portrait by a first-rate actress.

Stunning, beautiful, hypnotic, engrossing, spectacular... That oughta do it here as well, except Frozen Planet unexpectedly adds another word: Unprecedented.

Mad Men is back and back in all the right ways--the humor, the writing, the period details, and best of all, the flawless attention to these characters and their cluttered interior worlds.

TV's best (but do your homework before diving in).

A densely packed, well-paced gothic horror soap with surprisingly funny twists placed at the worst.

One of TV's best shows, comedy or drama, because this series often succeeds as both.

Beautiful and often moving.

Taut, efficient and directed with a scalpel, Breaking Bad remains a marvel.

The first three episodes totally nail it.

One episode in, "Glee 2.0"--otherwise known as the fourth season--looks to be a winner.

A re-energized and immensely entertaining start to the third season.

Bigger, brassier and even more thrilling, Homeland has boosted the stakes.

The hype is justified. Nashville's terrific.

Solid start to what could--and maybe should--be a future CW franchise.

Sunday is a blast. Heads will roll, and roll well. The gore quotient is through the roof. And finally this guarantee--there is one, maybe even two, spots where you will yell out at the screen, "Oh, my God, that just didn't happen." Yes, the new season is that good.

This beautiful and often moving film resonates even more powerfully with Sandy in our rearview mirror, while Burns' favorite theme--the American character--is drawn here with great clarity.

Character--as the old saying goes--is a long-standing habit, and their habits remain very much intact. The same could be could be said of Justified.

Africa convincingly, emphatically, establishes that you ain't seen nothing yet.

Sharper, smarter, more richly layered, detailed (and acted), Girls has improved upon its first season.

Monday night's return of Dallas is a joy and everything fans could ask for--the past, present and future all skillfully bound up in a high-gloss melodrama full of deceit, greed, Velveeta and (surprisingly enough) even love.

Best show of the season? Call me crazy, but it's a loopy-twisted-serpentine whodunit revolving around a whip-smart teenage girl...So let's recap. Engaging star, cool characterizations, witty scripts, meaty backstory. What's not to like? Only that networks always cancel deliciously offbeat gems like this. Let's hope UPN doesn't actually want to be a "real" network, after all. [22 Sept 2004, p.C01]

They [directors John Dorsey and Andrew Stephan] know how much to say, and show, to viscerally deliver the sights, sounds and even smells, without scaring us away.