Gillian Flynn

Almost every creative choice has been poorly reasoned.

I defy the naysayers who claim Curb is in a rut: Who cares if it's not reinventing itself? It has become one of the most reliably amusing comedies on TV, taking little annoyances, indignities, and offenses, and worrying at them until they bubble into fantastically overblown debacles.

House thrives on its one-two punch of ''He's a cad... a genius cad!'' But the series falters when it comes to genuine character development.

Rome is most entertaining when it laces its wild, ancient antics with winks of the pedestrian.

The opening of Weeds makes me want to scream. ... That said, Weeds is a dozen times more creative than its opening credits.

It is smug enough to think it's breaking ground, but not smart enough to know it isn't.

But as visually compelling as Over There is, it's also curiously devoid of tension, despite dropping its characters into plenty of ugly situations.

It's not a nice show, but it's so damn good. ...Leary has invented simply one of the best characters on TV.

That's the joy of the show. 30 Days is not about black and white, but about gray matter at work.

By making Johnson a sassy Southerner, The Closer is relying on the charm factor, and the show can be just as manipulative as Ms. Johnson herself. ... Fortunately, Sedgwick's is such a bracing performance, she sweeps briskly past these bumps.

A gleeful, fizzy race through Hollywood.

The indignities suffered by Valerie are cringy but not very funny — the show strives for the precision awkwardness of The Office but settles for general peevishness.

After dialing it down to an 11, [Vincent] D'Onofrio — along with some creepy stories — is turning CI into the best of the L&O franchise.

Director John Gulager ... is easily the most intriguing personality in PG history.

The good news for fans — and neophytes — is that the new sitcom is clever and insular, capturing all the drudgery, awkwardness, and rivalry of cubicle living. ... Ultimately, though, The Office lacks the aching subtlety of the BBC version.

Deadwood has become one hell of a great gimmick-free Western.

Fortunately, L Word has a brain beneath its pretty surface. It's packed with telling details that make the relationships feel as full of blood and love and foolishness as real people are.

Alias, although not the layered, sneaky, wildly imaginative drama it once was, is still entertaining.

Carnivàle distracts with dusty riddles and tarot cards, nightmare clichés, mutilated dolls, and twitchy Baby Jesus statues — hoping we'll forget to demand what we came for: answers or a story that makes sense.

Math might not seem the sexiest way to enliven a story. But that's the sneaky smarts of this show, executive-produced by film directors Ridley Scott (Gladiator) and Tony Scott (Man on Fire), who know how to dust off old genres.

With Bauer's audience-alienating daughter, Kim (Elisha Cuthbert), sent packing, the snazzy new cast members should keep the series moving at a nice clip.

Unscripted is a puzzling show — and not in a good way. ... Having actors play overripe versions of themselves can create great balloon bursts of comedy — David Duchovny on The Larry Sanders Show comes to mind. But Unscripted feels like a very subtle mockumentary... so subtle it's devoid of laughs or insight.

Elegantly filmed, Medium is quite eerie when it stays within the chilly purview of its star.

Smart, unruly, and very fast, Arrested is the ultimate TV series for our TiVo age.

There's a loathsome, mock-the-fatty undertow to Biggest Loser.

Between Laurie's more-great-than-good doctor and cases that encompass everything from bad ham to complete body meltdown, House preys on all that's wrong (and some of what's right) with modern medicine.

What we have here is a kinda-family-sitcom-semi-midlife-dramedy-medical show. The actors almost make the mishmash work. ... But for each understated scene comes a preening please-discuss-by-the-water-cooler moment.

What makes Veronica so strangely touching is that on a larger scale, her quest mirrors the common teen conundrum: My family's screwed up, and I'm not cool enough. How can I fix it?