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

This drive for revenge is what makes the pilot spark, smoke and go chug-a-chug-chug. [14 Nov 2011, p.45]

The show has the makings of great--what else can I say?--escapist entertainment. [23 Jan 2012, p.39]

Luck is a true original, a show with a tone like no other. [30 Jan 2012, p.43]

Comparisons to The Iron Lady, a sloppy movie that has Meryl Streep in roaring good form, are inevitable. Is Game Change better? You betcha. [5 Mar 2012, p.41]

The comedy here, as with Elaine, comes from watching Louis-Dreyfus's sophisticated, furiously sharp timing applied to a character who has the intelligence of a finch. [30 Apr 2012, p.35]

Given the amounts of sumptuous scenery to chew on, the acting is restrained, even if the gore and sex are not. [28 May 2012, p.40]

The pace sags, but the accumulation of sacrificed lives gives it all a haunting sorrow. [4 Jun 2012, p.44]

It's both old and new, a comfy piece of nostalgia that doubles as a fresh guilty pleasure. [18 Jun 2012, p.39]

The first episodes are very promising, full of feints, fibs, and a big, fat shock. [16 Jul 2012, p.40]

The show's tone [is] vulgar, jolly and winning. [16 Jul 2012, p.39]

It's just suspenseful and clever enough to keep you happily intrigued. [3 Sep 2012, p.39]

This BBC hit is the soppily tender story of '50s midwives in London's East End. [1 Oct 2012, p.38]

[A] highly satisfying update. [8 Oct 2012, p.57]

The Walking Dead has managed to work fresh morsels into television's grimmest stew. [22 Oct 2012, p.41]

Johnson is the find of the season: She's the sunbeam that doesn't filter out dust motes. [29 Oct 2012, p.38]

The CW's best show since Gossip Girl.... it has a forthright narrative seriousness, a respect for the gobbledy-gook that makes up any superhero's backstory--and a game cast performing with the correct degree of seriousness. [19 Nov 2012, p.35]

One of the fall's best new dramas. [26 Nov 2012, p.48]

Matthew Weiner has advanced the show far enough into the '60s that its fundamental philosophical question begins to generate its own oppressive suspense. [15 Apr 2013]

Louis-Dreyfus's performance--which, like Congress, can be divided into two houses, Crackling Charm and Hysterical Ego--still drives the show, but we're getting more realistic sense of political gamesmanship. [22 Apr 2013, p.45]

It is still a distinctly Guest production: often poky, always charmingly whimsical and, from time to time, so astoundingly funny you seem to have shot into a distant stratosphere of pure comedy. [13 May 2013, p.45]

Emily Deschanel is well cast as Brennan--she has the right sort of drained, remote presence, as if still working off last night's sleeping pill--and she's also well cast against David Boreanaz. [19 Sep 2005, p.45]

It's not clear how seriously Patinkin takes the whole thing--it's the same actorly mystery that makes David Caruso's whispery bitterness such a kick on CSI: Miami. [31 Oct 2005, p.39]

Ghost Whisperer can be surprisingly moving. [24 Oct 2005, p.41]

A diverting, silly potboiler, a bold cartoon with none of the staffers' anxious beetle scuttling that gives NBC's venerable The West Wing a sense of verisimilitude. [3 Oct 2005, p.39]

The banter is warm and fast and easy, and the sisters' personality types balance out well. [17 Oct 2005, p.39]

Hot Properties has a loose, engaging silliness. [31 Oct 2005, p.39]

Unlike Daily anchorman Jon Stewart, he's not only ridiculing the headlines but mocking himself. This is closer to acting than comedy, and it may be tougher. But Stephen Colbert is a great American and deserves our support. And suppore. [7 Nov 2005, p.41]

Horror isn't my thing, but this is pretty good. [7 Nov 2005, p.41]

The camera work is shaky, the music is gritty, and the endings aren't always happy. But the fact that you can almost smell the B.O. on some of the people piling into that truck makes it a raw, more real alternative to the usual sugary sweet. [21 Nov 2005, p.43]

The second half builds steadily and surely toward a potential meet-and-greet with the apocalypse. [12 Dec 2005, p.39]

[It] looks to be a season of solid suspense. [30 Jan 2006, p.37]

Just about perfect in its way--always fun, well-paced--and much, much better than UPN's failed models drama South Beach. [1 May 2006, p.39]

These joined stories never forge into one strong plot, but there's always Duvall. [3 Jul 2006, p.35]

[A] rattling good series. [10 Jul 2006, p.39]

The best thing from Season 1 remains the same: Mary-Louise Parker. [21 Aug 2006, p.37]

The Class doesn't necessarily generate more laughs than other sitcoms, but it has more charm--like a kinder, gentler How I Met Your Mother--and that's incentive enough to stick with it. [16 Oct 2006, p.39]

The pyrotechnics involved in the opening heist are good, and the cast is a dream. [25 Sep 2006, p.43]

It's a gripper. [25 Sep 2006, p.43]

Woods is every bit as entertaining as he strives to be. [25 Sep 2006, p.43]

I found 1 vs. 100 much more enjoyable [than Deal Or No Deal]. [23 Oct 2006, p.37]

The quickened pulse is a plus: The violence registers as sharp, stinging slaps. [11 Dec 2006, p.41]

Of the large, nicely peppered cast, I especially like Vergara, who has some of the vamping yumminess of a Catherine Zeta-Jones. [8 Jan 2007, p.35]

Top Design will make you not want to leave your TV room--no matter what it looks like. [5 Feb 2007, p.37]

It gets an unexpected freshness from a young cast. [5 Mar 2007, p.37]

This show has a light, charming sense of the ridiculous. [19 Mar 2007, p.39]

The show is a lusty soap opera that aspires to the pulsating, cutting-edge glamour of Cate Blanchett's Elizabeth. It's a little ham-fisted for that. [2 Apr 2007, p.37]

This is Amazing Race of the damned, with something of the open-ended, Pandora's-box mystery of Lost, and it has the potential for out-there adventure. [23 Apr 2007, p.37]

A satisfyingly meaty drama. [11 Jun 2007, p.41]

None of these results will rock a viewer's world, but it's unexpectedly satisfying to see stars in a reality project that's more relatable than ballroom dancing or a temporary work detail for Donald Trump.

Tudor history is irresistible, even if the bedroom gymnastics here seem more in keeping with the Playboy Mansion than a royal palace. [19 Apr 2010, p.47]

While the show's humor can be raunchy or even cruel, the voice work is pure unruffled deadpan. [18 Jan 2010, p.42]

The tenuousness of the situation, and the underlying hope for emotional growth by all, makes for a touching hour. [25 Jan 2010, p.43]

In her enjoyably ridiculous reality show, she's self-consciously restrained, perhaps trying to project old-fashioned noblesse oblige-even while goosing her Google profile with this project in self-exposure. She just ends up neutralizing herself. The show is dominated instead by a supporting group of rich kids who take the reverse tactic of whole-hog shamelessness.

This FOX version of a family sitcom isn't as irreverent or formula-free as it thinks--ABC's "The Middle" is actually edgier--but it scores points for never resorting to mere cuteness and for throwing in a bizarre sight gag about frozen squirrels.

The comedy never quite lifts into giddiness, but there are lots of solid, unexpected laughs. And isn't that cause for celebration? [26 Apr 2010, p.40]

When you're hot, you're hot-which is why having Betty White in the cast has generated an unusual amount of buzz for this TV Land sitcom. But her costars-ace comic actresses Wendie Malick, Jane Leeves, Valerie Bertinelli-are the ones who add sizzle to a not too promising vehicle.

Chef remains the model for cook-off competitions, balancing casual insight into culinary art with psychological snapshots of the aspiring chefs. This recipe can't be improved on.

At a full, commercial-free hour, this can all start to drag a bit. But L.A. is strongly evoked as a casually sensual backdrop and-thank you!-that awful L Word theme music is gone.

This is a carefully assembled, emotionally attuned drama about obese teens stuck in a summer weight-loss camp.

Their interaction is friendly, if mildly teasing, professional and catfight-free. This allows the show to have the relaxing, unchallenging pleasures of good fluff even when the premiere is actually going a bit heavy on the gore.

This makeover series isn't breaking any new ground: A wallflower, repotted and pruned, blooms overnight into an assured woman willing to tackle her dream date. The real asset here is its charming British host, style adviser Louise Roe.

It's a good show, powerfully acted--especially by Katy Segal as tough mama Gemma--and true to its convictions. [20 Sep 2010, p.52]

O'Loughlin's an impressively taciturn, tense presence" You get the sense that McGarrett could go to a luau and still experience it as a hurt locker. As McGarrett's sidekick Danno, Scott Caan is the opposite: all quick, bantam energy. He steals scenes as coolly as surfers catch waves. [27 Sep 2010, p.53]

I look forward to The Payoff. [27 Sep 2010, p.54]

This is Dallas with out all the barbecue sauce, a soap about dynastic Texans that feels closer to Friday Night Lights in its understated leanness. [27 Sep 2010, p.54]

This doesn't have the stiletto kick of the CW's Nikita, but it's frothy, sexy, relaxed--a brief, all-expense-paid vacation. [27 Sep 2010, p.55]

The cast plays out the adjustment with the right touch of pleased humor. [4 Oct 2010, p.37]

The wives are overwhelmed by the prospect of an addition, but this group ]is as comfortable with the camera as the early-era Gosselins. [4 Oct 2010, p.38]

Bloods isn't groundbreaking, but there are hints of a deeper scandal woven into the solid plot. Worth checking out. [25 Oct 2010, p.39]

Grey has been on long enough now that it has lost much of its erotic sizzle--McDreamy is edging toward Mcnappy--but the satisfyingly steady seventh season is a model of a hit that keeps fitting nee characters into the blueprint. [20 Dec 2010, p.41]

The interplay of the sexes has been used to better effect on other action vehicles--including FX's animated Archer--but the actresses lighten the tone, adding zip to a show that thrives on speed. [29 Nov 2010. p.42]

The girls, who keep breathlessly repeating the phrase "high fashion" as if it were a mantra, nonetheless behave as they always do, which is most of the fun. [13 Sep 2010, p.48]

She's at her best mapping out the messy web of relationships that come with being the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and the late Eddie Fisher. [20 Dec 2010, p.44]

The series has developed its own original rhythm, each week breaking cases down into unexpectedly punchy vignettes. The cast is excellent. [6 Dec 2010, p.50]

The acting is what keeps the show addictive--particularly good is Julia Stiles. [29 Nov 2010, p.44]

Defenders at least has a sure grip on its tone. [8 Nov 2010, p.40]

In its second season, Patricia Heaton's family sitcom seems to have found its natural resting point.

The show is cornball, but I'm willing to grant him this small, soft lob toward career rehab.

This enjoyable series from the Grey's Anatomy team is sort of Doctors Without Borders--who are also without too many clothes. [24 Jan 2011, p.41]

What keeps it from being exploitative--just--is the sense that these kids know such dangerous exhilaration won't, can't, lead to the happiness they're looking for. [31 Jan 2011, p.40]

Rivers scarcely pretends any of the setups are real--it's just more material for her. [7 Feb 2011, p.41]

We'll see how season 10 holds up once the chosen contestants move on to Hollywood, but for now Idol remains firmly on its pedestal. [14 Feb 2011, p.39]

[Forest Whitaker as Sam Cooper is] an arresting, oblique performance, and it works well amid all the procedural muck. [21 Feb 2011, p.42]

An odd but involving concept--Raging Birds. [14 Mar 2011, p.42]

What really matters on Apprentice, though, are the celebs: This season's B- and (let's face it) C-listers are a good, volatile mix. [14 Mar 2011, p.42]

With the second episode, though, the whole tone improves: Delany's performance seems to have caught some of the coppery warmth of her hair, and we spend more time with a good ensemble. [4 Apr 2011, p.49]

As lead detective, Mireille Enos is terrific and makes up for the sense that we're revisiting terrain already covered--and reduced to parody--by Twin Peaks. [11 Apr 2011, p.46]

Set on the eve of the 1936 abdication crisis, it has melodramatic bustle and tender affection for its characters--of all classes. [18 Apr 2011, p.46]

At least Endings has something fresh at it's core....Even better, the well-cast ensemble includes Casey Wilson. [25 Apr 2011, p.44]

The show is sloppy, vulgar fun, even if it's hard to detect much likability under the layers of lacquer. [9 May 2011, p.43]

This TLC series has hit a cultural nerve, partly because it offers practical, price-cutting tips in an era in which people are jittery about inflation. Also because it's bonkers. [26 May 2011, p.46]

She discusses her problems with a warm directness that makes them sound as if they could be anyone's. The show is less authentic when she learns about recovery from non-celebrities blindsided by tragedy. [16 May 2011, p.48]

The show works on its own undemanding terms. [6 Jun 2011, p.45]

Collar's odd-couple tension tugs the show in entertaining directions. [13 Jun 2011, p.46]

Katie Leclerc is instantly, sunnily appealing as Daphne....Vanessa Marano is fine as the other misplaced kid, except she's a sulker and sort of a drag. [13 Jun 2011, p.48]

Very few reality shows generate real suspense and sadness at the moment of elimination, but this one does. [20 Jun 2011, p.53]

In the premiere of this likably preposterous new show, [Chloe] learns that these changes are embedded in her DNA and can be traced back millennia. [20 Jun 2011, p.58]