The show's set in Washington, where the crises that need managing are unending, so there's bound to be material, some of it all too familiar.

Interesting enough to justify six hours? Probably not. But for those who watch "Game of Thrones" and "Spartacus" for the high body counts, it offers plenty of action.

People who like their procedurals with punch--there's plenty of punching, not to mention kicking, in the pilot--might like CBS' period cop show just the way it is. But if I'm going to stay with Vegas, I'm going to need to be wooed a little.

Between their personal history and their decidedly different approaches to running the place, they're dealing with plenty of built-in conflict, but if the show's a hit, I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually united, just as Perry and his fellow "Friends" stars once did, to demand an end to (or at least a dialing back of) the monkey business.

While I'm intrigued, I'd prefer to be carrying something stronger than a candle before I head too far down this particular rabbit hole.

As the series goes on and takes a deeper interest in the multitude of characters he's gathered around him, Mr. Selfridge begins to come into focus. Whether you'll find it as engaging as "Downton Abbey" may depend less on any single performance than on how invested you can become in the rise of the modern perfume counter and off-the-rack dresses.

Defiance the TV show may not break new ground in its two-hour premiere Monday, but it does stand on its own as a watchable sci-fi series, with a Wild West vibe mixed with a bit of "Farscape"-meets-"West Side Story.

No matter how beautifully the dead bodies are staged--and, like Dr. Lecter's dinners, the corpse presentations in Hannibal could be ripped from old issues of Gourmet magazine, if Gourmet had featured cannibalism--they're still meant to represent once-living people. So, if I'm less amused by this than whoever chose to title those episodes "Aperitif," "Amuse-Bouche," "Potage," "Coquilles" and "Entrée," call me a party pooper. Still, it's a gorgeous party, with hosts that include "Wonderfalls" star Caroline Dhavernas as a colleague of Will's and Laurence Fishburne as Will's boss.

Whether other people's secrets will prove to be as interesting as the intimations of Norman's not-so-sweet future remains to be seen.

The World According to Dick Cheney has some chilling moments, from his dispassionate description of waterboarding ("It creates a sensation of drowning") to his 9/11 narrative, in which he takes responsibility for having authorized the shooting down of Flight 93 if it approached Washington. What it doesn't have is a lot of navel-gazing.

"Six Feet Under's" Rainn Wilson, in fact, is so weirdly compelling as Scott's hierarchy-obsessed assistant that he just might make the whole exercise worthwhile. [24 Mar 2005, p.36]

I just couldn't buy in.

Whether you'll want to go the distance with "Big Day" will probably rest on how close you feel to the family.

I should probably feel bad, too, about finding all this silliness passably amusing, especially after having trashed its evil stepsister on ABC. But somehow I don't.

I want to like "30 Rock" more than I do so far, because I've always liked Fey. Yet it could be Fey - the actress, not the writer - I'm having trouble warming to.

The first hour left me a bit cold, but the second, which arrived yesterday, filled in enough of the blanks to take me as far as Monday.

In January or February, I might not have found room in my own schedule for a combination murder mystery and teen soap. I certainly would have wondered more about setting a show about adolescents among the ancients of Palm Springs. Now I'm just inclined to appreciate the little things.

Like so many current serials, [it] requires viewers to buy into the idea that its heroes have no choice but to do very unobvious things.

Their efforts to better their lives through grand larceny feel forced, not to mention doomed.

Much of what's swept up in "Dirt," from gay action stars to sad sitcom actresses, seems more dusty than dirty.

McCormack, a rangy actress who looks more comfortable in Mary Shannon's tank tops and casual jackets than she ever did in the lawyerly business suits she wore way back on "Murder One," manages to make all this crankiness intermittently endearing.

I'm ashamed that a wounded Marine, about to be discharged after 15 years in the service, needs help from an entertainment show to find and afford civilian housing for himself and his family.

Kranz does look like a writer, for what it's worth. But if he's really as good as they say, he'd have written something better than this.

I don't want to beat up on Meyers here. He does justice to Hirst's Henry, if not entirely to history's, and being young and good-looking is hardly a crime. But like Tony Soprano, Henry VIII brings more to the table than charisma: Corrupted by absolute power, he's a bit of a monster.

In Tim Gunn's Guide to Style, it feels as if he's sometimes forcing himself to emote for the cameras.

There's a distinct "Alias" overtone to her initiation into the dark side of the force. If I'd liked "Alias," this might have me all excited. But I didn't, so I'm not.

Defoe's ambitious bachelor is transformed into an ardent husband and father, whose memories of his previous life are so tinged with romance they include falling rose petals. I kid you not.

It's a subject that was explored more deeply, and even a touch more believably, in BBC America's "Jekyll," a nail-biter of an update in which James Nesbitt inhabited both personalities so completely they barely even looked alike. Slater, by contrast, just seems like a guy in need of a good night's sleep.