One critic characterized "Breaking Bad's" dark humor as "Thelma and Louise as seen by Dostoyevsky" and that was one of the perkier, more optimistic descriptions. A seven-part AMC series, "Breaking Bad" TV show tells the story of Walt White, high school chemistry teacher turned methamphetamine cooker and dealer. Of course, as Glenn Frye crooned, "The lure of easy money has a very strong appeal," but "Breaking Bad" does not allow for even a split-second of sunshine through the abysmal darkness. In this corner of the universe, crime never-ever pays. Walt, expertly portrayed by Bryan Cranston of "Malcolm in the Middle" fame, is neck-deep in problems, complications, and flat-out ugliness from the minute he lights the Bunsen burner. Although the writers have woven-in some amazingly ironic lines, known in the trade as "comic relief," the characters deliberately deliver their quips in such a super-slow, slack-jawed drawl they seem more tragic than funny. Of course, "Breaking Bad" TV series make some pretense toward allegory of the American middle class struggling through the throes of deep recession, and it scores some hard hits. Most of all, though, "Breaking Bad" shows that even when fine writers, directors, and actors can find humor and pathos in displaced white-collar workers' undignified struggle for dignity, it still looks awfully damned dreary and ugly.

Big Love TV show is the controversial drama on HBO that gives a bird's eye view of polygamy and its participants without being discriminatory. The show centers around a man named Bill Henrickson and his three wives; Barb, Nicki and Margene as well as their nine children, all fathered by Bill. After being banished from his home by the prophet, Nicki's father, Bill struggles to live following his polygamous beliefs while appearing normal to the outside world as the owner of a home improvement store chain. Meanwhile Bill has to deal with not just one wife at home, but three as they all compete for his time and attention. Only on the HBO Big Love TV show will you find this storyline that will keep you watching.

Olivia Pope has dedicated her life to keeping public figures scandal free but that's a difficult task when some of them have another agenda. Kerry Washington from The Last King of Scotland and Ray, plays Olivia Pope, a woman on a mission with plenty to work on as she is a crisis management expert with recurring crisis situations going on around her continually. Loosely based on Judy Smith who was President George H.W. Bush's administrative press aide, this TV series attempts to show how chaotic life in the political arena can be. Also starring in Scandal are Henry Ian Cusick (After The Rain, Lost) as Stephen Finch, a womanizer attempting to "turn over a new leaf". Tony Goldwyn (Without A Trace, The Mechanic) plays President Fitzgerald Grant, and Harrison Jones who is played by Columbus Short from Cadillac Records, Stomp the Yard). Created by Shonda Rhimes who is behind Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice, Scandal gives an interesting peek into backroom politics.

Based on the Italian fifteenth century Borgia dynasty, the made for the Showtime network series titled The Borgias follows Rodrigo Borgia (Jeremy Irons) rise to power and the Papacy. Called the original crime family, the Borgias amassed great wealth, influence, and power as family patriarch Rodrigo committed nearly every sin imaginable as he gained power and vast wealth. Such successors as The Godfather (Mario Puzo) and The Prince (Niccolò Machiavelli) were inspired by the original "bad family" the Borgias and made for entertaining viewing. But the originals were greedy evil people who had no morals. It is at the height of the Renaissance period that we find the Borgia family intriguing to watch and perhaps learn from. Besides Jeremy Irons there are many fine actors in the cast including Francois Arnaud as Cesare Borgia, Holliday Grainger as Lucrezia Borgia, David Oakes as Juan Borgia, and Derek Jacobi portraying Cardinal Orsini. Look for this entertaining television series and see the original "Godfathers of crime".

"There are eight million stories in the city that never sleeps," Gary Sinise's unmistakable tenor voices-over the opening skyline shots for "CSI: New York." Apparently, New York's dedicated crime scene investigators also suffer sleep-deprivation, working tirelessly"”some would say obsessively"”to demystify eight million different ways to die in the Big Apple. Sinise plays Detective Mac Taylor, suitably intense CSI:NY unit leader, complemented well by workaholic assistant Stella Bonasera, expertly portrayed by Melina Kankaredes. Together, the lead detectives manage an appropriately colorful team of streetwise geeks and nerds determined always to make their cases well beyond reasonable doubts. Like the others in Jerry Bruckheimer's crime-drama franchise, "CSI: New York" devotes more attention to sophisticated computer work and uber-cool lab procedures than to the old-fashioned business of talking to people. Mac Taylor quickly reminds, though, "We follow the evidence, because the evidence never lies."

One of two intense medical dramas NBC introduced in the fall of 2009, "Mercy" had all the advantages its one-named rival "Trauma" did not. First, it had talent behind the scenes. Liz Heldens from "Friday Night Lights" created the show and led the writers, proving once again that the best way to dramatize the real world is to show it realistically"”ugliness and all. Second, it had attitude and guts to stay true to its revolutionary premise, the well-informed notion "that nurses remain [not only] more generous caregivers, but that they are more intuitively apt, smarter, more committed and as technically able as their [physician] superiors, with none of the accompanying arrogance." In a winner-take-all ER smackdown, you always would go all-in with the Mercy Hospital nurses. The main character, nurse Veronica Flanagan Callahan, has just returned from a tour in Iraq, where she clearly learned more in each day than the pompous, presumptuous doctors learned in all five years of medical school. Of course, Veronica gets neither the respect nor the reward she deserves, but "Mercy" dangles the possibility of true love as just recompense for Veronica's skill and compassion. Taylor Schilling plays Veronica with exactly the right balance of toughness and vulnerability, skillfully juxtaposing her consummate skill as a nurse with her intrepid ingenuousness in matters of the heart. If only "Mercy" had survived into a second season, all the tangled threads in the story might have come to their proper denouement. If only.