His second turn as Holmes in the BBC miniseries Sherlock in 2012 inspired a rabid cult following, a legion of fans who call themselves Cumberbitches. You might think that inspiring an Internet meme ought to signal one’s arrival, but British-born Benedict Cumberbatch is just getting ready to take Hollywood—and America—by storm.

Adam Driver doesn’t look like a movie star. Below a jet-black mop of hair sits an array of incongruous features—squinty eyes, a long proboscis, prominent ears, and a wide mouth. His voice is guttural and prone to violent changes in pitch. When he moves his towering 6-foot-3 frame, he stalks like an explorer navigating treacherous terrain.

It’s surprising, then, that his Girls character, Adam Sackler, the oft-shirtless, emotionally incontinent carpenter on HBO’s zeitgeist-y series—and antihero love interest of Hannah Horvath, played by the show’s creator-star, Lena Dunham—has become a sex symbol among millennials. Call him the hipster Don Draper.

The Revolution is being televised.

Anyone who enjoys even the most casual relationship with a television set is probably aware that How We Watch TV has been changing in recent years. “Binge watching,” as scores of breathless critics have christened it, is increasingly common, especially among younger viewers who’d rather screen their favorite shows online, on demand, or on DVR than wait around for them to air once a week on old-fashioned TV. First you fall for a show, and then you watch it endlessly. Because you can.

But that’s only half of the equation. Take a look at today’s best, most buzzed-about series. The ones that receive the highest ratings from critics. The ones you talk about at work. The ones that seem likeliest to define this particular moment in television history, ages and ages hence:

A restaurant featured on Gordon Ramsay’s Fox reality show Kitchen Nightmares is living a real-life nightmare—on its Facebook and Yelp pages. Viewers, appalled at what they saw on the show—the owners of Amy’s Baking Company were shown pocketing the staff’s tips; it was revealed by Ramsay that the raviolis, like the restaurant’s famed baked goods, weren’t made on site—took to social media to complain.

Customers weighed in on Yelp: one reader called the owner “a psychopath,” another said, “This place makes Subway or MacD seem like fine dining,” and another described Amy’s as an “Awesome restaurant if you're a masochist! I've been insulted, humiliated and put down so many times in an evening that I got my fill for a year.“

ABC took the wraps off of its 2013-14 schedule on Tuesday morning, following speculation about where the network would slot its highly anticipated television series spin-off of feature film franchise The Avengers, entitled Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Yes, there are a lot of periods there for one title.) Elsewhere, ABC announced that Rebel Wilson's sitcom Super Fun Night would get the plum post-Modern Family timeslot on Wednesdays and its upcoming spin-off of Sunday evening's successful fantasy drama Once Upon a Time, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, would be heading to Thursdays. And comedy The Neighbors, which received an eleventh hour reprieve, is now headed to Fridays. 

American fans of the Crawley clan can finally mark their calendars: Season 4 of Downton Abbey will kick off on PBS' Masterpiece Classic on Sunday, January 5, 2014.

Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton announced the official U.S. airdate for Season 4 of the award-winning period drama Tuesday at the PBS Annual Meeting. Downton's fourth season will run for eight weeks, from January 5 to February 23, 2014, roughly the time timeframe as its third season, which aired in the U.S. earlier this year. (In the U.K., Season 4 will air this autumn on ITV.)

On Thursday night, The Office will punch its final time card after nine seasons on NBC. If it seems TV fans are throwing more of a staid conference-room-fruit-punch-and-brownies goodbye party than a full-on farewell blowout, that’s because the NBC sitcom has taken a sharp nosedive in ratings and certainly in quality since the departure of Steve Carell’s Michael Scott two seasons ago.

But ignoring the end of The Office completely just because it’s not as great as it used to be would be a shame for that very reason: it used to be great. Like, really great. It managed to walk the tightrope of edginess and heart without wobbling too nerve-rackingly in either direction. It popularized that single-camera, mockumentary film style that’s now become ubiquitous. The Office was cynical but not sarcastic, and broad while still human, somehow populating a drab office park with characters that were kooky enough to laugh at but real enough to relate to and, more important, care about.