Anger Management is Charlie Sheen doing what Charlie Sheen does-- on-screen. It's not artful, it's not elegant.

For this show to work long-term, its human characters have to become richer--and funnier--so that they can evolve with the audience long post the point where the writers have run out of tricks that Crystal and her various winged or four-legged co-stars can do.

Though Esposito and Burke are both excellent--and Kripke and Favreau stage a classic swashbuckling swordfight for Miles that's easily the highlight of the first hour--far too much time is spent on the boring (Charlie) or annoying (Danny) teenagers.

There's no character you haven't seen before. More importantly, there's no character that hasn't been done much, much better elsewhere.

The problem is that Zero Hour is either unwilling or unable to be that crazy all the time.

The characters don't feel any richer here than they do on CBS' various cop shows, and the series doesn't even commit to how much it wants to keep you guessing about why the crime occurred.

Overall, though, Jon Benjamin Has a Van isn't the next obvious step for Benjamin conquering TV comedy. It's a misfire that mainly made me sad we won't have full new seasons of either "Archer" or "Bob's Burgers" until 2012.

On top of having a dated premise, it just feels tired.

Barring a significant step up in quality--or at least the self-awareness to stop taking its silly plot and characters so seriously--those people [Gen X'ers who loved "Buffy"] will only be watching out of loyalty to a part that Gellar played a long time ago, on two different networks that no longer exist, and not because she's presently doing work that merits that kind of devotion.

Although there aren't any Carrie Bradshaw-esque puns on this show, nor ethnic stereotypes, the comedy feels more frantic and desperate.

At this stage, Man Up! (which was actually created by co-star Chris Moynihan) is a show with forgettable characters, jokes that don't land and a shaky grasp at best on its own premise.

Beyond the problems of time and memory, there's the way that Innocent feels trashy, overwrought and disposable.

When you spend all your time and energy explaining how the trick works, there's precious little left to entertain the audience.

It's just a collection of creepy imagery, lots of screaming and the occasional musical number for Anika Noni Rose.

It's lame and tin-eared.

As a narrative achievement, though, Magic City is a mess, filled with paper-thin characters and clichéd dialogue and storylines. If not for the appealing lead performance by Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Ike, large stretches of the series would be unwatchable, even with all the lovely visuals.

Even with the couples counseling gimmick, Common Law is ultimately too much like every other traditional cop show you've ever seen, even as it's also too much like every other USA show you've ever seen.

None of Men at Work is funny, but the greater sin is how uninspired it feels.

The execution in this case is too shrill and scattered to get any of his points--or jokes--across.

Adult life may be like high school some of the time, but it isn't all of the time--and a show suggesting that it is becomes just as difficult to endure as some of the worse memories of high school itself.

Ultimately, it's the exact same tedious show they've been making, under one name or another, for years now.

Williamson may have put thought into what this show is about, but what comes across on screen is an empty exercise in fetishizing the charismatic evil of serial killers.

There are just a lot of crazy, crazy ideas hurled out there with no real thought given to pace or tone or how to mesh them all together.

The new season has a few moments, mostly involving the return from the dead of Jack's old CTU colleague Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard), who now seems to be working for the bad guys. But all the attempts by Jack and his writers to justify every past decision often brings the action to a crawl.

Heroes may be better this year than it was last year, but it's still a very dumb show that just wants you to think it's smart.

It's an hour of unpleasant yet bland people occasionally bumping into each other and saying racially provocative things.

If "Donnellys" wants a shot at doing better than "Studio 60" in its timeslot, it needs at least a hint of a larger-than-life figure.

A work in progress.