Mobster stories are always a harder sell for me. I don't romanticize organize crime the way others do, though I can be swayed.

I'm pretty sure the world is in solid agreement that "The Wire" is worth watching all the way through.

"Big Bang Theory" focuses on main characters who in other shows would only be auxiliary players hewing to stereotype: The gawky nerd who lives next door and says oddball things.

Jarecki's 'Reagan' is a compellingly watchable and appropriately conflicted portrait...artfully nuanced and intellectually curious.

I'm a fan of half-hour shows that can be both funny and dramatic.

It seems to me conspiracy is at the heart of dozens of TV dramas currently on. Maybe that itself is some kind of conspiracy.

We got Arbitron diaries at my house in the 1980s, when the family was down to just my mother and me, and we tried for a couple of days to fill it out (I of course treated it like we'd been asked to write a new book of the Bible), but we got really bored with it and gave it up.