The world is well-constructed, down to the details: By the third episode this season, Ulrich's hair has grown into a messy and convincing frontier mullet. And the characters are intriguing; Esai Morales is notable as an Allied States Army major who might soon be convinced that his superiors are up to no good.

While the technology is inventive, fear, frustration, and anguish still drive the plot. We’re back in “Battlestar’’ territory, and that feels good.

It works largely because his victims are the ones doing the work, offering body language clues, lapping up subliminal messages, and proving their capacity for distraction.

As much as this is a story of the pressures facing teenage girls, it's also a striking, honest look at the parent-child relationship, with its ebbs and flows of communication and trust.

It was vintage Conan stuff, proof that his absurdist sense of humor won't change much on the West Coast. And yet last night also contained some grand nods to O'Brien's fancy new home.

Halter is also the most heartless of the principals, in a tough-love sort of way.... [But] Most of the time, though, this show makes you wish that the principals had sharper teeth.

Their lack of self-awareness is intoxicating; it makes the premiere the most engrossing hour of pure TV escapism I've seen in a very long time.

In order to fully enjoy The Fashion Show--and there is plenty to enjoy in Bravo's new reality contest--you have to resist the urge to keep comparing it to "Project Runway."

Rest assured, the show itself hasn’t changed. Producers know better than to violate certain television principles, and what makes this contest work is what always has: that hostess Tyra Banks is one fabulous brand of crazy.

So far, at least, this season promises to be less about plot than personality. That doesn't mean the show is perfect - it never was--but it's better, and that's a big relief.

It's supposed to be a story of New York and its many demons, but it works best as a tale of loud, proud, surprisingly brittle men.

Compared to the original, it's slicker, brighter, more obviously produced, and a smidgen less fun.

Credit Grier for trying, credit Comedy Central for adding another voice to the mix, and keep hoping that a show like this eventually hits its stride.

The Middleman is so light as to feel almost weightless, and compared to much TV, that comes as a relief. If comic books are meant to be escape, there are far worse worlds to camp in for the summer.

Any time things threaten to get maudlin, the movie takes pains to poke fun at itself, in a way that even a gentle eighth-grader could appreciate.

Stargate Universe isn’t quite so ambitious [as "Lost"], but it’s intriguing in its way, down to the ship, bathed in blue light, that emerges as a character in its own right. The ship is more interesting thus far, alas, than any of the female characters, but perhaps that will change over time.

It's a single-camera comedy that comes close, at times, to feeling like a live-action cartoon. It's not as hilariously cutting as "Chappelle's Show" used to be. But the tone is entertaining, and the format fits.

Over the course of the premiere episode, [Paul] Gross grew on me, as did the show itself.

If there's a glaring flaw, it's in the character of Dr. Eleanor O'Hara (Eve Best). As comic relief, she's far too thin. Nurse Jackie has much richer, darker comedy to offer.

Ruby & the Rockits has no right to be as likable as it is ... But “Ruby & the Rockits’’ turns out to be a warm intergenerational comedy that never pushes life lessons in your face.

FlashForward is a good idea, and while that’s no guarantee of a good series, the first hour gives us reason to hope.

Househusbands of Hollywood is a lot more real than I expected it to be.

It’s the grade of funny this show seems to have accepted - cute, giggle-worthy, and only a smidgen dangerous.

Lock ’n Load treats Wayne and many fellow customers as curiosities, and occasionally smacks of condescension. (The “Amazing Grace’’ sequence, in particular, crosses a line.) But the series also takes pains to avoid making judgments, and offers a parade of gun owners so vast that we end up with a broad view.

For the most part, the show is content to be another study in the effects of fashion on self-esteem.

If only the endeavor felt more worthy, and less prefabricated at some offshore factory where workers in mouse ears plug in the parts: the underconfident girl with a surprisingly pretty voice, the semi-bad boy with a sensitive side, the meticulously choreographed musical numbers, the heartfelt Disney lessons about self-love and self-expression.

For a certain segment of the audience--men, boys, evil babies, talking bears--it’s likely to go over quite well.

NBC sent the first hour of tonight's two-hour season premiere to critics, and it's sprinkled with some of the original fun: inventive special effects, a twist or two, some nifty gore. That doesn't stop it from being the same, familiar mess.

Samurai Girl takes up a lot of time and space, but manages to do only one surprising thing: prove that it's possible to be action-packed and dull at the same time.

There’s a fine line between wink-wink clever and desperately cheesy. Tonight’s story crosses into Kraft Singles territory more often than it should, with bleeding statues and bloodshot eyes, sacrificial fires and some poorly acted demonic possession.

This version of his story arrives in a world that has seen not only "Lost," but "The X-Files," "Armageddon," and every other sci-fi show or movie that melds disaster, conspiracy, and teamwork. By now, it takes a lot more than clever ideas to keep us hooked.

The contestants are full-blown neurotics, and neophytes to boot: They're so young, inexperienced, and catty that they're difficult to like and even harder to watch.

Very little here feels original or even pregnancy-specific, from the farcically miserable boss (Chris Parnell, uncharacteristically unfunny, even when playing off a small dog) to the sassy best friend (Cheryl Hines, trying her best and smoking up a storm) to the see-it-from-a-mile-away office romance that threatens to unravel once the truth is revealed.

Where "Scrubs'' managed to plumb some truth about medicine and camaraderie Cougar Town is less funny, and sometimes kind of creepy.

A show so stunningly derivative that it feels a little bit insulting.

By rights, given all of this material, "The Cougar" should be hilarious. But the show takes itself so seriously that, instead, it feels impossibly sad.