If it hasn’t happened already, someday someone will teach a class in which the passage of time in the United States is studied through its television shows aimed at and featuring teenagers. Does anything say late ‘50s quite as well as Leave It to Beaver? Want to really remember the ‘80s? Square Pegs says everything. Most of these shows don’t hold up particularly well (try watching Beverly Hills, 90210), but few hold up as poorly as 21 Jump Street.

One can’t get three words into the pitch for Hung before realizing that it’s tailor-made for cable: A male prostitute… Stop.

Hard to believe television’s version of Maxim magazine has lasted six seasons by clinging to its formula (girls with hot bodies, dudes with money and nothing to do, popular music, and ball busting) for dear life.

Fox Kids’ Iron Man animated series ran for only two seasons in the mid 1990s, and I remember watching regularly back then. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment is banking on that twenty-something nostalgia and the timeliness of issuing this bare bones, 3-DVD set so close to the theatrical release of Iron Man 2. Well, after watching the episodes that aired during Iron Man‘s first season, I’m fairly certain my nostalgia was terribly misplaced.

The first season of Mad Men showed a staff a bit too in love with their own premise—they seemed to scream, “Look! Smoking! Misogyny run rampant! Drinking at work!”

The Lazarus Effect follows four HIV positive individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa and their transformation from frail, near-death emaciation into fully functioning human beings thanks to the effects of ARV (Antiretroviral) drug treatment.

In the case of Daria Morgendorffer, absence surely makes the heart grow fonder. Since MTV’s Daria finished its fifth and final season in 2002, the series spent years caught up in red tape regarding use of its original score.

The Doctor is back and he’s in very good hands. Nervous Doctor Who fans can all breathe a collective sigh of relief, safe in the knowledge that, based on the fifth season premiere, Matt Smith will be a charming and spirited Doctor, and new executive producer Steven Moffat will bring a fresh and dark fairy tale-like whimsy to the show.

Set three months after the ravage of Hurricane Katrina, HBO’s new series Treme doesn’t hang all of its drama on that crisis. David Simon (The Wire, Generation Kill, The Corner) and Eric Overmyer’s (Homicide, The Wire) know that the New Orleans disaster is already clear in their viewers’ minds. Instead of dismantling the heartache of the crisis, they pen a love letter to the city and its determined citizens. Thankfully, the series is rarely schmaltzy or heavy-handed in its agenda.