There is nothing heightened or cheapened by contrivance as the detectives and patrol cops go about their often sordid business.

If you can make it past the exposition, and the earnest family cliches--a rebellious teenage son, an awkward brainiac daughter--there's plenty of satisfying dino action. And it all looks gorgeous.

Like the notorious family that bribed its way into the Vatican's papal chamber while sullying many a Roman bedchamber, we want our money's worth. And The Borgias wickedly delivers, serving up an operatic feast of delicious malice and unbridled lust: for power and wealth, for carnal pleasure and vulgar theatrics.

With only three hours to develop character and story, it can't help but suffer by comparison to the Emmy-winning '70s series that helped put Masterpiece Theater on the map, as well as to the recent Masterpiece triumph of the similarly themed Downton Abbey. But there are considerable pleasures.

HBO's punchy, pungent but ultimately facile Cinema Verite dramatizes the making of 1973's revolutionary PBS (!) docu-series An American Family, a precursor to today's exhibitionistic "reality" freak shows.

Our heroes' new companions may be less than electrifying, but there's plenty of action to compensate--and, as always, sex (though Capt. Jack now asks about protection)--and a chilling adversary in Oswald Danes (Bill Pullman), a psycho killer who survives execution and becomes a perverse cult hero in the media.

The humor isn't exactly subtle, but much of it rings true.

It feels awfully dated, except when Bello takes matters in her own hands to keep things fresh.

While not quite as inspired as last year's breakthrough comedy Awkward, MTV's Pants appears to have legs.

This show goes for Broke with its snappy dialogue, occasionally crossing the taste barrier with its grotesque ethnic caricatures (the girls' Asian boss in particular). But the girls have great chemistry.

Rudolph is the wacky comic icing on what otherwise is a more grounded and endearingly realistic comedy about two exhausted new parents (Christina Applegate and Will Arnett) who are still adjusting to the loss of their it's-all-about-me, hard-partying lifestyle to make way for adorable baby Amy.

Work of Art itself manages to elevate this often schlocky genre into an entertaining celebration of the process of creation, with some startling and visionary (and occasionally disturbing) pieces produced under intense pressure.

The first episode opens and closes on the cliffhanger of Bridget-as-Siobhan being stalked by an unseen menace, but which sister is the actual target? As long as Ringer keeps us asking questions like this, and Gellar keeps us engaged in the deluxe and twisted sister act, we're more than happy to be put through the romantic-suspense wringer.

Comedy isn't pretty, but in the Short run, it can be painfully hilarious, even when it feels like Gervais is retreading some awfully familiar material here.

[Touch is] emotionally compelling but wildly fantastical and undeniably manipulative.

The series is low-key to a fault but likable, not so different from Bones in its sense of off-kilter humanistic humor, though never as graphic.

Mostly, despite a title that sounds like a roofie, this is good harmless fun.

Sarah isn't easy to warm up to, and neither is The Killing, though I respect its moody insistence at depicting even the most sympathetic figures in the worst possible light.

Bent is the sort of funky offbeat comedy that grows on you, so watching more than one episode at a sitting turns out to be a good thing.

Watching things go to hell was great fun. Being stuck in sitcom hell turns out to be a bit more trying.

This may not be Peabody material, but if you like a show that's not afraid to go bananas, this might just be your type of low-hanging fruit.

Falling Skies has amped up the dramatic stakes this season, even offering a glimmer of hope when an unexpected visitor drops into their midst, balancing the earnest family values with a visceral survival saga that keeps the hokum mostly at bay.

It never takes itself very seriously, yet there is serious chemistry between these guys.

It has sharpened this season (judging from the first five episodes) into a bolder, though still hardly subtle, urban melodrama of moral, political and sexual chicanery.

Smash introduces its winsome ingénue Karen (Katharine McPhee) to a headstrong young songwriter with hip Rent ambitions (rising star Jeremy Jordan, who headlined two real Broadway musicals last year). This subplot, like much of Smash, is cheesy and corny, but works when the impassioned singing starts. Which, for a musical drama about musicals, is what matters most.

HBO's woozy and often intoxicating Hemingway & Gellhorn [is] a sprawling docudrama (overlong at 160 minutes) about glamorous world adventurers whose weapons are words.

It is satisfying in its own low-key way, a solid companion piece to the laid-back charms of The Glades

It's a solid premise executed with the usual CBS professionalism.