The stars are appealing WB veterans, but it is hard to believe that subsequent episodes will carry the same edge as the premiere. "Supernatural" is not "The Sixth Sense," it's "Ghostbusters' Creek."

Clings to proven formulas.

"The Unit" becomes distinctive only when the action shifts back to the wives left behind on the base.

Mr. Dean is appealing as Nate and Mr. Sheridan is amusing as Dove, but the tone of the series is uneven.

The hallucination conceit is strange but not necessarily horrible.... The problem with “Raines” is that it tries too hard to be too many things at once.

Those jokes are supposed to establish Liz’s geek cred, but they mostly serve as speed bumps in the show’s otherwise fast and clever banter.

Mr. Danson has some funny moments, but he is not as comfortable in a comic genre where deadpan takes the place of punch line.

"In Case of Emergency" is uneven, more antic than witty.

Prime-time game shows like “1 vs 100,” which begins tonight on NBC, are not a test of a contestant’s erudition or nerve; they are aspirational reality shows that allow ordinary Joes to go for it all in the hope of transforming their lives.

Women’s Murder Club is all right, but not good enough.

It’s creepy, steamy and funny at times, and it’s also a muddle, a comic murder mystery that is a little too enthralled with its own exoticism.

Pizazz is what’s missing from CBS’s new drama, Eleventh Hour, in which Rufus Sewell plays Dr. Jacob Hood.

The series itself seems divided: at times a supersize fable told with portentous, and even turgid, simplicity, while at others, a sophisticated spoof that uses ancient legend to send up modern politics. And when a series cannot be both, it ends up being neither.

Suspect Behavior is not boring, but it is familiar.

Undercover Boss, a CBS reality show that turns the tables on management, seems tailor-made for the anticorporate rancor of the times, but if anything, it paints too rosy a picture of white-collar benevolence.

Predictable characters haven’t hurt the “CSI” crime shows, but this is Mr. Bruckheimer’s first hospital drama, and viewers accustomed to layered dramas like “ER” and “House” expect more.

The comedy pivots on Hank’s painful adjustment to middle-class living, but that joke is undercut with syrupy life lessons about parental responsibility and quality time.

The balance between humor and pathos is a hard one, and this show teeters on the edge and occasionally falls flat.

The premiere showcases seven different women, doctors and their patients, in various states of anger, insecurity and neediness. It’s like a Hogarth engraving of the seven stages of womanly despair, “A Surgeon’s Progress.”

Plain Jane is more than shopping spree and vocabulary builder; it betrays a cockamamie respect for the therapeutic process, and it shouldn't be giving too much away to tell you that the snails lose, that the plain Janes blossom, and that no stimulus money has been wasted along the way.

Some of the stories are touching, but the formula is set and stagy. The viewer has no doubt that the episode will end with a job offer and floods of thankful tears.

The snowcapped mountains, pine forests and shimmering lakes are majestic, the Palin children are adorable, and the series looks like a travelogue--wholesome, visually breathtaking and a little dull.

Off the Map takes few chances with plot or characters.

It's well made and also at times unnecessarily cheesy.

It's a five-part drama that is loyally, unwaveringly true to James M. Cain's 1941 novel and somehow not nearly as satisfying as the 1945 film noir that took shameless liberties with plot, characters and settings.

Ms. Walker is an appealing actress with a strong presence, but in the pilot, at least, her character isn't as well formed or well written as other tough-talking television dames.

If only for the costumes and '60s music, Pan Am is amusing to see at least once, but if it has any instructive benefit at all, it's as a mood indicator for these times, not those.

The pilot begins promisingly with Max unfurling an Aaron Sorkin-like rant at a customer foolish enough to snap his fingers to get her attention. But after that there are too many one-liners about semen stains and orgasms that aren't clever, just pronounced very loudly to carry over the titters of a studio audience.