There is awkwardness and idiocy on display in Life's Too Short, which stars actor Warwick Davis as a hopefully inaccurate version of himself, but almost none of it is funny, much of it is off-putting and all of it is pointless.

At least Lewis appeared to be having fun, which can't be said of anyone else in this rather grim production.

[The actors] are cramped by obvious, unsubtle writing and a show that doesn't seem to have much of an idea of where to take these sardonic characters.

A tedious array of shrieky moments, dumb stereotypes and unearned sentiment.

This is a case of a show just not working on both a structural and emotional level.

Feisty is one thing, rude is another. But all of that is of a piece with the show's generally lazy approach to storytelling: A couple of supporting characters are cardboard villains, and a subplot about a minor's surgical procedure doesn't make a ton of sense if you know the first thing about medical privacy laws.

Given that this show was created by "Scream" writer Kevin Williamson, there's the usual showy deconstruction of scary-story cliches, but that deconstruction just draws attention to how hollow this project is. ... Ultimately, my dislike for The Following has less to do with its gore factor than with its essential laziness, silliness and pretentiousness.

It's the sloppy approach to context and the tabloid-y aspects of Vice that are ultimately harder to take than the self-aggrandizing bro-ness of it all.

As remakes go, Crusoe is at least a couple of cuts above NBC's brainless "Knight Rider," but let's face it, the bar couldn't be set any lower.

I expected more sparky wordplay from a Williamson show, but the Vampire Diaries pilot is pretty limp and lifeless in that department. The attractive cast is... attractive. Let's be kind and say that they are not all blessed with the same level of competence in the acting department.

Grammer's so much better than the unfunny show that has been built around him.

The main thing you've got to remember is, the scripts for this show have to beat the audience over the head with exposition.

The cop's cockiness soon becomes tedious, then grating, then actively annoying (and guess what? He's a former Chicago detective, a la the cop on "The Gates." Stop maligning our police force, TV!). The rest of the show is bland and the banter-y dialogue is not as amusing as the show thinks it is.

Not much about this show rang true to me, except the moment when the league commissioner begged players to get their fees in on time.

"Twenty Good Years" is based on the premise these two comedy warhorses can make just about anything work, but this tired vehicle proves too much -- or rather, too little -- for even them.

The show is a particularly awkward attempt at a "dramedy": It tries to make you care about Dennis' quest to become a news anchor and meet the right guy, yet it makes light of the fact that Dennis is shrill, superficial and a bit promiscuous.

Pretty pointless.

Even if the jokes on this show weren’t tired and mean-spirited, it would be hard to care about any comedy that hates its own lead characters so much.

Both shows ["Happy Hour" and "'Til Death"] bill themselves as comedies, but really, it's hard to find two less funny half hours on the network schedule.

"Arrested Development" this ain't.

A clichéd, cloying show.

I wouldn’t rush to clear space on the old DVR for this muddled marital mess.

If you're after a compelling drama set amid the wild beauty of Africa, don't bother with the new CW show Life Is Wild. You're better off with "Meerkat Manor" or a well-made nature documentary.

It all seems painfully staged and contrived.

NBC's new Jimmy Smits vehicle is called Outlaw. I guess the title 'Contrived, Irritating Star Vehicle' just wasn't as catchy.

Everything about Magic City shows a lack of depth, and the pacing is almost glacial.

When The Newsroom isn't obvious and self-congratulatory, it's manipulative and shrieky.

The women here are shrewish, the vibe is both manic and tired, and overall, the decent cast (which includes the wonderful Anthony Anderson) is given nothing funny to do.

CBS programs generally display a level of basic competence that this "comedy" falls woefully short of.

This just doesn't work on any level and creates very little suspense, even in life-or-death situations.

I feel sorry for Shannon, who nicely underplays her role, but she’s trapped in show that does not work, and, with Blair as her co-star, will never work.

Pinkett Smith is an engaging actress, but even her formidable energy can't liven up this sodden drama.

Mercy manages to stumble across a few not-awful moments here and there, but the bad moments are so cringe-inducing that the show ought to come with a warning label telling consumers this derivative melodrama is potentially toxic.

Nothing about the slipshod writing or frenetic direction makes these people compelling, and some of them come across as downright cartoonish.

You could watch the first few episodes of “Heroes,” or you could repeatedly hit yourself on the head with a brick. The effect is surprisingly similar.

“Big Love” is a waste of time, and an excruciating waste of these actors’ talents.

A grating comedy.

This pretentious mishmash is a paint-by-numbers Irish-American "Sopranos" ripoff.

What do women want? Well, they don’t want another migraine-inducing soap opera about the lives of high-strung, whiny female executives in New York. I’m pretty sure of that.

No cliché is unexplored, no supporting character is allowed to resemble an actual person.

It's just awful.

The humor is so predictable and so stale that it fails to produce any laughs.

It’s easy to see why preview DVDs weren’t distributed–the show just isn’t funny.

A program so bad that it's not only unpleasant to watch, but it makes you fear for the future of network television.

It doesn't work as a character drama and it's tiresome more often than it's freakily scary.

Women are as capable of writing a misogynist, soul-killing TV comedy as anyone else. Exhibit A: I Hate My Teenage Daughter, a shrieky nightmare.

Liz and Dick is badly paced, cheap-looking and encrusted with a tinkly, preposterous soundtrack that is designed to make viewers go insane.

Nothing could really prepare anyone for a show so wantonly grisly as this worthless, exploitative program.

What’s most mind-boggling about this show is how it manages to get every single thing wrong.

The worst unscripted outing to hit the airwaves in many a moon.

This wretched show not only features a lead character who is an unredeemable nitwit but dialogue that manages to be leaden, preposterous and pretentious all at once.

Anchorwoman isn’t much of a reality show, because most of the conflict is contrived.

Not only is Hemingway and Gellhorn wretched, it is bathed in pretentiousness and pseudo-intellectual delusions of grandeur. It's not just crap, it's expensive, painfully "artistic" crap starring a lot of actors who should have known better once they took a look at the script, which is hilariously awful.