Tonight's mystery ultimately doesn't hang together, but it does establish the show's light mythos in an easy-to-digest way.

Hope you like looking at a golf ball, well, doing nothing. You'll see a lot of it during the hour. It sets the mood of The Glades. Sweltering stupidity.

The Salahis are the attraction here. Judging from the season teaser, the show will spend the entire season building up to the infamous dinner-crashing scene, to which the Bravo cameras appear to had access. Remember, a fame whore needs your attention to survive. Look away now.

Visually, Los Angeles works. One forgets how dark and claustrophobic the New York shows can be. The sets seem more open, and the decor reflects an electric mix of modern styles. But the crimes--ripped from the headlines, naturally--might as well be culled from the funny pages.

Although the show is reminiscent of the kid-friendly TGIF lineup, some of the jokes are for the PG-13 crowd.

Maybe Abrams just ran out of energy drinks that week. This is a poor caper show that doesn't even deliver half the surprises of TNT's "Leverage."

Wahlberg, a favorite here, needs to avoid David Caruso Syndrome. There's a bit too much posturing with the furrowed brow and hand-on-the-hip that has made a caricature of that "CSI: Miami" star. Moynahan is solid as the assistant district attorney, but her character's lefty politics seem at odds with her occupation and her family.....But Selleck as the bad guy in his own show? It almost makes you want to dial 911.

Lone Star, created and written by Kyle Killen, centers on a con man who lives a double life--with two beautiful women--and is so full of plot holes you could drive a motorcade through it with a parade of elephants behind.

Chase reminds me of "Trauma," NBC's attempt at a Monday drama last year, although the shows couldn't be more dissimilar (the latter was about first responders). They both seem to be placeholders in the prime-time schedule until the network can scrounge up something better.

Linney, who also serves as executive producer, is luminous as always. But the first three episodes fall into a predictable pattern of Cathy confronting someone and dropping cryptic comments about her diagnosis.

V is stuck in the past of a 25-year-old show. It needs to shed that skin.

Sister Wives practically twists and breaks its back assuring viewers how gosh-darn normal everything is. Still, there are some cracks in the crackpots.

There's an undercurrent of desperation in this spinoff--the belief that a woman is only as good as her face and figure, and that there's always some pretty thing on her way up to take her place. These women know they are disposable. That's the ugly truth lining the sun-kissed streets of Beverly Hills.

Many of the scenes with the teens seem staged, especially tonight's climax. Still, the Bruces aren't anything like the delusional couples who populate Bravo's "Housewives" shows. This is a functioning family trying to survive a dysfunctional time.

Sarah Palin's Alaska turns out to be a tepid travelogue of the former governor's home state's tourist attractions interspersed with homespun homilies and family downtime.

NBC's The Cape aspires to be "The Dark Knight" but unfurls more like the campy 1960s "Batman" TV series.

With its relentless narration, Gold Rush: Alaska more often plays like anaudible.com download with stunning visuals of Sarah Palin's home state as a backdrop.

You've been three rounds with this story before. Lights Out sets you up for a sucker punch.

Comparisons to the BBC show are unavoidable since the first two episodes are practically a scene-by-scene reshoot of the original's opening. The stars even look like doppelgangers of the English cast.

Those who love the books will probably geek out on the series. The rest of us may have a harder time sitting through Game of Thrones.

For a show that starts out with so much energy, Breakout Kings quickly settles into a procedural rut.

Unfortunately, Iron's not in every scene, and the 100-minute premiere, after a promising opening, becomes bogged down in political intrigue as his rivals scheme to remove the new pope.

It's wonderful HBO is willing to subsidize so many artists, but Treme feels more like a tax write-off than an actual series.

Why Not? With Shania Twain rings of a last-ditch effort to avoid counseling.

Becoming Chaz never really gets under its subject's skin.

TNT bills Franklin & Bash as a dramedy, but it is more accurately a comedic bromance laced with pop-culture jokes and a dash of legal jargon to trick you into thinking you spent an hour on something of substance.

NBC, together with Academy Award-winning producer Brian Grazer ("A Beautiful Mind"), tries to duplicate the success of AMC's "Mad Men" but cribs the wrong details with a woefully untalented cast, mixed feminist messages and a melodrama that is at times laugh-out-loud funny.

There are guilty pleasures and then there are ones for which you just feel guilty about sacrificing your valuable time. Revenge is the latter.