Sara Smith

A serviceable but less-than-stellar spinoff of AMC’s hit series “The Walking Dead.”

The show’s salty-sweet themes of loyalty and redemption contrast nicely with the vile comedic speeches Leary has made a career out of delivering.

The first hour of Scream is an efficient fright-delivery system wrapped inside a teen drama, but it’s meta-commentary that makes it worthwhile. That, and the pilot’s promise to spread out its jump scares more slowly and deliberately.

Although it was wise not to try to repeat the double interrogation format of the first season, there are clever nods to those closed-room confessionals, and the show eventually eases into rewarding drive-and-talks between Farrell and McAdams.... What keeps this Detective from being quite as compelling as the first is the lack of early focus.

Wayward Pines has moments where it’s a happy hot mess, but it’s mostly a muddy puddle of confusion, and it has executive producer M. Night Shyamalan’s fantastical fingerprints all over it.

Montage of Heck achieves its goal of intimacy almost too well. It’s such a tightly cropped portrait that criticizing it feels like criticizing Cobain. But it’s too long and a bit repetitive, and it keeps trying to explain its subject through his own scribblings long after his soul has been laid bare by more direct means.

A three-hour miniseries that bounces between tragedy and comedy with ease.

It's a more compelling, faster-paced and less frustrating journey than fans were treated to in “A Feast for Crows” and “A Dance With Dragons,” the novels that line up with the current action in Westeros’ winter-is-coming world.

Daredevil stands alone as an artful, gritty ensemble drama that could elevate the superhero origin story like HBO’s “True Detective” did for the crime procedural.

I could watch Roger (ever-dapper John Slattery) fire people all day long (Sunday’s surprise firing is an epic one), but Don’s cryptic conversations with strangers can feel staid and scholarly.... And then--herein lies the addictive nature of the show--the action pauses for just a moment, the acting thrums with tension, and you feel satisfied that you have been a good student.

Haggis’ journey into and out of Scientology could have made a fascinating film by itself, and he’s just one of a dozen articulate talking heads.

The Slap is rare TV, depicting the kind of drama viewers might find themselves caught up in. It’s nice to see a show shamelessly go about doing its manipulative business.

The moral quicksand that made The Americans so compelling for its first two seasons is deeper than ever.

The History channel’s Sons of Liberty miniseries tells a satisfying tale of Boston’s slow burn toward rebellion in the 1770s.

Unlike "The Office," Backstrom hasn't yet fleshed out the supporting characters to water down Wilson's well-oiled obnoxiousness generator. Once it stops explaining everyone's backstory--why is he so bitter? why is she so naive? why are the firefighters evil?--Backstrom might turn into a decent chase for the bad guy of the week.

It’s a bit of a mess.... Between the issues of race, tribalism, rape and consent, The Red Tent covers more ground than expected.

Frances McDormand delivers another one of her consistent, airbrush-free performances in HBO’s four-part miniseries, an adaptation of Strout’s book that focuses more tightly on its title character and ends up drawing to a simpler, more raw-edged conclusion.

Death Comes to Pemberley, on paper and the small screen, is not as satisfying as a newly discovered Austen novel would be.

Gunn and Tennant are flat-out fantastic in Gracepoint. The supporting cast, including Nick Nolte at maximum haggard levels, is compelling. They’re so good, it might take a while to notice that you’ve seen this story before, even if you haven’t seen “Broadchurch.”

It’s a pleasure to watch Bean fall into his “legends,” or fake identities, even as the show pushes the boundaries of what TV audiences might accept when it comes to instantaneous computer heroics.

Like “True Detective,” The Knick benefits from a consistent vision and stellar cinematography. Its turn-of-the-century sets and costuming will transport viewers into the past more vividly than any stuffy sitting room in “Downton Abbey.” But it requires dedication to stick around with The Knick until the action gets going a few episodes in.

Every time the 1943 of Manhattan begins to feel like 2014, it returns to the nostalgia of movies like “The Right Stuff,” where brains and grit make the peace, back to a time when America trusted its fate to the smartest guys we could find.

It’s Gretchen and Jimmy’s repartee, their unrelenting need to voice their awful thoughts, that makes Worst worth watching.

Thanks to its excellent cast, led by Nat Faxon and Judy Greer as Russ and Lina, Married rises above its cliched setup.

The show’s recycled vampire mythology fails to justify this level of bloodletting, which even fans of “The Walking Dead” might find gratuitous.

It’s not that The Leftovers isn’t great storytelling, because it is. It’s just befuddling, violent and sad--more and more all the time, with no satisfaction in sight. Theroux is flat-out fantastic and Emmy-worthy in this role.

[The pasts of the ladies at Litchfield] are less “Shawshank Redemption” than “Goodfellas,” with every episode using sparse, smartly edited scenes to tell one inmate’s story.

The series hits its stride a few episodes in, when Lowe and Blackbeard finally get on a boat together to fight a common enemy, knowing they’re each just waiting for the right moment to kill the other. Their dynamic evokes the tense partnership between Al Swearengen and Sheriff Bullock in "Deadwood."