Paul Brownfield

The comedy equivalent of low-hanging fruit. [3 June 2005, p.E1]

If the most overly praised TV dramas hit you over the head with their stiff coherence, Huff goes the other way, sketching in a world that is suggestively there but not quite, and swinging at big "Angels in America"-type themes more often than nailing them.

Clearly, he cares about firefighters and knows them, knows the cadence of their speech, what matters to them. But Rescue Me feels like a misguided gesture of goodwill -- one that serves Leary's vanity in addition to his heart.

It's all kind of pleasingly thematic, alternately gritty and funny and caked with moral decay. Milch loves the wordplay; the show's language is one of its constant sources of pleasure. Not everyone's drunk in "Deadwood," but the liquor flows freely, lubricating the mood; the way the show is lighted, it always seems like late afternoon, and the set is a dingy, muddy Main Street with little side neighborhoods that function as slums. [6 Mar 2005, p.E28]

"Carnivale" is beautiful to look at, but it drags. ... To watch "Carnivale" is to feel you have purchased a moody Tom Waits concept album, where he's banging on trash can lids and mumbling about Satan into a megaphone. [7 Jan 2005]

Highly watchable. ... The show, an obvious riff on "Desperate Housewives" and "Laguna Beach: The Real OC," is less glossily executed than those but also, for all this, trashier and more believably grotesque. [21 Mar 2006]

A small-scale gem. [3 Aug 2005]

As comedy it's hit-and-miss; what sells the show are the in-between things, the nonsense sibling spats between Dennis and Dee, the way Charlie's voice rises as his anxiety level does, the loose play of the banter. But if giving DeVito a prominent role will up the attendance, it doesn't immediately up the comedy. [28 Jun 2006]

The result is another finely acted cable drama with great production values and the germ of an interesting idea behind it but no coherent tone or character development or story, even -- just a series of attempts to pass off creatively exaggerated behavior, the more desperate the better, as some kind of social commentary.

"Project Runway" treats the contestants, the majority of whom are either from New York or Los Angeles and in their 20s, with an air of contempt and condescension. [30 Nov 2004]