This is TV as great modern literature, a shattering and heartbreaking urban epic about a city (Baltimore) rotting from within.

One of TV's boldest and best dramas.

Moving the story ahead five years didn't so much reinvent the show as it recharged and refreshed the scintillating mix of domestic comedy and sudsy intrigue that we've always enjoyed.

Torchwood: Children of Earth is one of the TV events of the year, and anyone with a taste for serious dark fantasy is encouraged to strap in for the thrilling, chilling and unnerving ride.

Easily the best and most original entertainment too few are watching, Daisies dazzles and delights with a sensory overload of perfectly surreal whimsy that juggles screwball fairy tale, romantic comedy and mystery.

The Pacific is magnificent in its visual and graphically visceral scope and shattering in its emotional, deeply personal impact.

The return of the two-time Emmy winning best drama instantly eclipses the rest of summer TV with its dazzling wit, its posh mid-'60s style and its timelessly provocative substance.

A feast for the senses and a gritty tribute to the soul and irresistible culture of a mighty city, this series is a pungent slice of New Orleans life, set in the aftermath of Katrina. This show sings, and it cooks with all creative burners firing on high.

This is the best new series, network or cable, of the midseason. An immediately addictive brew of action, suspense and wry humor, the show is grounded in Olyphant's low-key but high-impact star-making performance, the work of a confident and cunning leading man who's always good company.

This instantly captivating period piece feels thrillingly modern as it captures with remarkable detail a chaotic time of invention and re-invention, of social progress and prosperity upstaged by the gaudy corruption and jazzy debauchery of the Prohibition era.

As leaps of faith go, yes. And faith--in visions both magical and musical--has everything to do with Eli Stone's divine appeal.

AMC's dazzling Mad Men, returning this weekend for a third season of rich and provocative drama poised at the brink of cataclysmic cultural change.

I can attest there's no such thing as too much Larry. Or, more to the point, too much Curb. Weak with laughter, I couldn't be happier to welcome it back.

I didn't know how 24 could top last season, but so far it's working. And the edge of my seat is already frayed.

It lacks the star power (Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet) of Ang Lee's 1995 Oscar winner. But Austen's characters are so enduring and endearing in their virtues, vanities and passionate follies that they don't require movie stars to bring them to life.

HBO's brilliant and bleak The Wire may have saved the best for last.

Simply put, the journey of Battlestar Galactica is one long, exhilarating headtrip.

The only bleak aspect to this miniseries is that it doesn't last forever.

The second season... crackles with high drama, suspenseful twists, unexpected humor and emotion.

Finally, cable's hit design show is back, still the best and most flamboyantly entertaining of TV's skill-based competitions.

Animation has rarely felt so explosively, hilariously defiant.

When a new comedy shows up as fresh, original and painfully hilarious as Sons & Daughters, at first I want to cheer. And then I start to worry if it can survive. Call it Arrested Development syndrome.

Surreal and harrowing.

This show delivers the dramatic goods with painstaking authenticity each week, and even when it isn't trying to make you cry, you can't help but get emotionally involved in the lives of these instantly recognizable and compelling characters.

A show and a heroine larger than life, twice as colorful and infinitely more adorable.

Dexter is real, all right. Real good.

Nobody said the creative process was pretty, but rarely has it made such electrifying TV.

This Technicolored kaleidoscope fable of life, love and perpetual whimsy restores my faith in TV's ability to amuse, enchant and entertain with endless invention and eye-popping style.