Better Call Saul season 3: Is it still the best-looking drama on TV?

Crime drama Better Call Saul returns to Netflix this week for a new season - and the critics are still enamoured with it.

Breaking Bad's hit spin-off follows the metamorphosis of small-time lawyer Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) into the fast-talking legal shark Saul Goodman, before he becomes Walter White's chief enabler.

Seasons one and two explored Jimmy's journey from a mischievous, underachieving scam artist to an earnest striver who gains a law degree while working in the mail office of top law firm.

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Many wondered whether the show would satisfy an audience coming down from the dramatic highs of Breaking Bad, but the prequel has received solid audiences and glowing reviews.

Last year, Julia Turner in Slate argued Better Call Saul was "already better than Breaking Bad" and could be "one of the best television shows ever made".

She particularly praised the "astonishing cinematography, dark comedy" and attention to detail, arguing that the show is "so casually visually stunning that its pedestrian beauty feels like grace".

As the new season kicks off, however, some have suggested it could speed up its storyline, with even Odenkirk telling Radio Times he wished the series would "move faster".

He said: "I know it’s an incremental journey and it’s a little too slow for some people."

However, he added, like Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul had to "build the dominoes up" before knocking them down. He also reassured impatient fans that season three would be "picking up speed".

It's debut episode, Mabel, has already received encouraging reviews.

Christopher Hooton in The Independent says the opener picks up from last season's cliffhanger, in which Chuck (Michael McKean) taped Jimmy's confession, while Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) becomes a "more compelling" part of the story as he discovers that Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) has been tracking him.

He also praises the stunning camera work and tells viewers they just have to get used to the pace, which "revels in the mundanity of life".

Hooton has some reservations about Saul's increasing reliance on Breaking Bad characters, however, but says they "undeniably ratchet up the tension".

He concludes: "Stick with it, season three is definitely going places."

Gabriel Bergmoser on Den of Geek argues that Saul is "one of, if not the best show on television right now" and the first episode serves as a reminder of why.

Mabel does "excellent character work" while "advancing the plot in ways both fascinating and surprising", he says.

Another nine weeks of this? "Yes please," he adds.

New episodes of Better Call Saul air every Tuesday on Netflix in the UK.