David Bianculli

The First Lady, which interweaves the stories of three different occupants of the White House from three different eras: Betty Ford is played by Michelle Pfeiffer, Michelle Obama is played by Viola Davis, and Eleanor Roosevelt, a very vocal proponent of women's rights, is played by Gillian Anderson.

61st Street, which premieres April 10 on AMC, is a detailed look at the intersection of crime, the police and the courts in Chicago. Like David Simon's The Wire, it looks at the underbelly of all these systems — exposing their weaknesses while showing how individual characters try to cope with it all.

Julia is a wonderful, eight-episode series that tells of story of how Child brought her recipes — and her enthusiasm for demystifying French cooking — to television.