Behind the Candelabra succeeds precisely because it doesn’t care much about health or what constitutes a good role model--it shows respect for a complicated marriage simply by making it real.

A gorgeously living thing.

Smash does a very satisfying job of merging the pleasures of "American Idol" and commercial Broadway, placing the "hummable melody" dead center and prioritizing fun over absolute authenticity.

The new episodes start well, then keep improving, with narrative clarity and a fresh visual beauty.

Broadchurch is beautifully crafted: well filmed, well cast, well scored, atmospheric without being a drag. It also has a striking mixture of cruel insight and sentimental warmth that elevates it above cheaper concoctions.

Rock is able to find humor in every aspect of his childhood.

The meanest sitcom in years—and one of the funniest.

Mad Men is smart and tremendously attractive, and it stirs you more than it probably should.

McBride is comfortable improvising, and in Eastbound there’s a lot of pleasurable tension in watching Kenny create difficult situations with his poor judgment and get out of them with his escape artist’s quick brain.

Men of a Certain Age is bound to attract attention, because its co-creator, and one of its co-stars, is Ray Romano; what shouldn’t be overlooked, however, is the fact that the show is also good. Surprisingly good.

The result, with its strong, complex, funny, flawed central character, feels truer to life than the zillions of one-dimensional (or no-dimensional) nurses on television.

Eastbound & Down holds together so well that it's worth looking past the ugly for the solid performances and the charcoal-black humor beneath, particularly in the final episodes, which delve into Powers's family history.

Awake may be hard to categorize, but it's worth our attention.

Episodes has a sly subversiveness that deepens over time, like mercury poisoning: it's an adult farce that is at once frothy and acerbic.

This season is so much more effective that it’s practically a master class in how tweaks can transform a series--and in how hard it is to judge a sitcom early on.

Smart, salty, and outrageous, the series falls squarely in the tradition of graphic adult cable drama.

The dialogue isn’t always subtle, but it’s often sharp.

It is probably too soon in the series to expect to see more complexity, or some sense of the grinding difficulty of the job of President, and the number of no-win situations that present themselves every day in the Oval Office. But “Commander in Chief” really does make things look too easy.

Compelling, if not quite riveting.

For a lot of viewers “Big Love” is going to need time to settle in; it doesn’t have much dramatic texture until about the fifth episode.

Unfailingly enjoyable.

The plot is difficult to follow - shot sequences, at least in the first two episodes, often pair sex and death (an FX trademark, practically; it’s the network that looks our animal selves in the eye), whether or not their pairing helps the story--but you’re strung along deftly enough so that you do want to know how it’s all going to play out.

Breaking Bad is very well done, but it has a bleakness that seems to be manufactured for no good reason. In its spiral down toward nothingness, Breaking Bad pulls viewers down with it, just because it can.

At its best, the storytelling itself manages to accommodate a sense of historical contingency.

The three alters are broad stereotypes, but Collette makes the moments of transition surprisingly touching, and sometimes subtly comic.

Not all the tweaks in the plot work well, but most of the series’ flaws are masked by the excellent casting and the good writing for three central characters.

Revenge is too juicy to write off as junk. It's got strong performances, from actors who don't condescend to their flamboyant dialogue.

The British series, about the aristocratic Crawley family and their titular home, goes down so easily that it's a bit like scarfing handfuls of caramel corn while swigging champagne.