A fond farewell to HBO's 'The Wire'

When "The Wire" began five seasons and a lifetime of innocence ago, it opened with a scenario that said everything about the beautiful, piercingly honest pain we were in for.

TV REVIEW: HBO has a breakthrough moment with 'In Treatment'

The best show on television right now is HBO's "In Treatment."
TV REVIEW: HBO's 'Bernard and Doris' is rich filmmaking

When people say they don't make movies like that anymore, "Bernard and Doris" is the kind of movie they mean. Human. Intimate. Involving. Surprising. Rich in character, emotional connection, sense of place. A movie that knows what it wants to do, and does it, and it's actually worth doing.
NBC makes a Thursday night comeback

Thursday night, once dominated by NBC, has become one of the most competitive nights on television.
TV REVIEWS: 'Viva Laughlin' falls off the table; 'Band' has a solid beat

Critics are always complaining that TV is too timid, too tired and too obsessed with focus groups to try anything truly interesting. So it gives me no pleasure to say that, of two network series premiering within 24 hours of each other this week, CBS' genre-bending "mystery drama with music" falls flat on its face, while Fox's latest music competition succeeds by coloring neatly inside the lines.
VERNE GAY: Drew Carey has come on down!

I am almost certainly the worst judge in the world of "The Price is Right." Don't watch. Never have. Never will.
Channeling values: Which new TV shows are family-friendly?

Every fall television networks roll out their new shows and, Focus on the Family's Steven Isaac says, "every year the pickings get slimmer and slimmer" in the area of family-friendly programming.
TV REVIEW: ABC is 'Masters' at hiding a sci-fi gem

For the next four weeks, ABC presents its best new series in more than a year: an ambitious, artistic, refreshingly intelligent anthology series, "Masters of Science Fiction."
TV REVIEW: Nothing is too neat and tidy in CIA miniseries

Cold War, hot tempers and feverish dreams of betrayal, oh, my.
TV REVIEW: Moral ambiguity makes 'Damages' fascinating

Since there are already approximately 10,207 Emmy categories, I might as well suggest one more: Outstanding Performance In The Field Of Standing Cliches On Their Heads. And the winner by a country mile is "Damages," FX's new legal drama, a compulsively watchable marvel of misdirection.