"Episodes": TV's Funniest Show?

Tasmin Greig and Stephen Mangan  (tv equals)

I flat out forgot how darn funny Showtime's "Episodes" was until it resumed last week with its second season. 

Season one was technically a mini-season, as the show ran a teasingly brief seven episodes. Season two has been mercifully extended to nine half-hours of acutely observed, tartly clever satire. It's target? The cultural Anglo-American gulf as experienced by a pair of screenwriters lured out to Hollywood to adapt their hit British TV series for the US market.

One the sharpest, most incisive comedies currently on telly, it is hugely funny, yet not necessarily for those American patriots too thin-skinned to appreciate the immensely focused, trenchant observations of the often shallow, narcissistic tendencies of the network television industry.

"Nurse Jackie" Keeps Getting Better

Eve Best, Peter Facinelli and Bobby Cannavale  (showtime)

After just completing its fourth season, "Nurse Jackie" asserts itself anew as the strongest of Showtime's wave of femme-centric series, a movement that began with the whimsical but trivial Mary Louise Parker-led "Weeds" and most recently includes the Laura Linney vehicle "The Big C" which just concluded a discouraging third season and has yet to be renewed.

Don Cheadle Heads Biting "House of Lies"

Don Cheadle in "House of Lies"  (eurweb)

Don Cheadle is currently heading the cast of one of television's funniest shows, "House of Lies" on Showtime.

"Whitechapel" is Gripping Crime Drama

Rupert Penry-Jones  (bbc)

BBC America has been offering some of the most gripping crime drama on TV this fall. The just-completed "Luther" mini-series was not only a showcase for protean actor Idris Elba, but a tautly written, marvelous directed and acted drama. 

Dexter is Back for Season Six

David Zayas and Lauren Velez  (thetvaddict)

Showtime's hit series "Dexter" is back for its sixth season, and after just one episode, it looks and sounds like viewers are in for another thrilling autumn. Based on the graphic novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay, the show veered away from Lindsay's series about a serial killer after its successful first season and has been attracting a growing cult audience ever since.

BBC America's "Luther" Classes up the Joint

Idris Elba  (wbur)

It's no surprise that BBC America is responsible for some of the most inspired network television in the US. A handful of cable channels have elevated the quality of domestic TV tremendously in the past score or so. HBO was the standard bearer back when it's roster included "Six Feet Under" and "The Wire," two of the most engrossing American TV series of the past 20 years. 

Hugh Dancy Brings Gravitas to "Big C"

Hugh Dancy and Laura Linney  (s3.sidereel)

Such is the strength of Hugh Dancy's portrayal of a cancer patient on the soon-to-end second season of Showtime's "The Big C" that it is his storyline that has become the centerpiece of this compelling drama, one of television's most accomplished. Like another Showtime series, "Nurse Jackie," "The Big C" is centered around a successful female actor who is over 40 and has earned acclaim for her work in TV in the form of Emmy accolades. The writing is similarly tight and inspired and both women hold the center of their respective lives as working professionals whose lives invite a number of entertaining characters.