You're stuck with a dull mush that works neither as drama, comedy or camp trash.

The most important lesson from tonight's premiere is that there isn't a single plot point this yawn-a-minute show won't feel the need to hammer home.

Sanctimonious yet salacious, tawdry yet preachy, and dull as, well, dirt, this haltingly comic drama has as much trouble finding a workable tone as it does making a coherent point.

Honestly, Deep End is the type of high-gloss, dim-bulb broadcast hour that makes you despair for broadcast hours.

In short, it's a good thing they've been friends since childhood, because nothing in their personalities would lead you to believe they'd even be civil to each other if they met as adults. That's a problem for a sitcom about friendship.

The show is all structure and no substance.

Courting Alex is nothing if not dull.

Gross, ugly, vicious and stupid--Allen is all of that, to be sure. But funny? Too rarely to matter.

Bynes shows promise, but neither she nor her co-star -- Beverly Hills, 90210's Jennie Garth -- has the skill to pull off physical comedy. They look as if they're being clumsy on purpose -- which defeats the comic purpose. [19 Sept 2002]

For these stories to work, we have to invest in the everyman hero caught in the center, and while Edwards may be convincing as the "everyman" part of the equation, the "hero" eludes him.

There isn't a moment of wonder or suspense in Surface, or a single performance or character that is even remotely involving.

With each misstep, E-Ring becomes more ridiculous.

The show just kind of rolls along, never quite provoking you to change the channel but never providing any great reason to pay attention either.

Moonlight. It's basically "Angel" without the search-for-a-soul underpinnings that gave Angel depth, and with a more ponderous script and less adept cast.

What you get from Motherhood are witless, barely connected vignettes about three unpleasant, unbelievable women.

The adventures aren't funny, and the friends aren't believable. But the real flaw is Reiser seems to have missed one of the central points that gives Curb its odd, counterintuitive appeal: David's willingness to paint himself in an unwaveringly horrid light.

If only Harm had stuck with "strange" and not barreled right on past to "stupid."

Guys With Kids is an idea in search of a show. And a better idea.

Donovan is barely present, and while Heche may have her strengths as an actress, warmth would not seem to be one of them.

Despite the show's constant insistence that Joe and Louis are lifelong best friends, you struggle to spot what exactly Joe and Louis see in each other.

It's hard to say what seems sillier: the show's misplaced attempts at comedy or the intuitive leaps that allow the agents to solve the case.

The main structural problem for the show is that neither the couples nor the contrast makes any sense.... Still, this being a comedy, the more troubling problem is that no one is funny, starting with Garrett.

As a whole, the show is as cute and easy to like as its star, and that's saying something.

It just doesn't seem the best fit for Grammer. He's playing a character who's as pompous as Frasier but with less justification, less heart, less wit--and less able support.

The show is so painfully witless and dull, your daily commute may begin to seem entertaining in comparison.

Relentlessly mediocre.

Fear plays like an illustrated Life of the Saints on fast-forward. Blink and you can miss decades.

The problem with this trio isn't that they're unmanly; it's that they're morons.

You're left with a show mothers and daughters can both hate.

Vulgarity and lack of taste aren't the issues here as much as a deadening single-mindedness.

Not content to simply be stupid, Outlaw is more than a little insulting.

Witlessly Americanized by Michelle Nader (King of Queens), Kath manages to waste the talents of Molly Shannon while exposing the limits of Selma Blair's comedy range.

Suburbia isn't the worst show you've ever seen. It may not even be the worst show you could watch tonight in this time slot. But it is among the least-memorable.

Unfortunately, the comedy is Kelley at his most forced and artificial.

Badly written, badly cast and done on the cheap in the Canadian woods, Flash is the kind of fantasy toss-off that gives sci-fi, and Sci Fi, a bad name.

[Kreuk and Ryan are] terrible, but the material may have left them with no other option. Luckily, in this world of 1,000 channels, you have plenty of other options.

The writers seem to assume that life backstage at a glamorous New York restaurant is so inherently enticing, we'll just fall into the story on our own. Maybe, but a few sympathetic characters or amusing lines couldn't have hurt.

If straining-to-be-inspirational, card-shop stocking fillers such as A Perfect Day are the best TV can do, then really, leave us to contemplate the meaning of the season in peace.

The scene before the opening credits is awful enough all by itself to send you fleeing to any one of the other networks, all of which have something better to offer.

It's all standard stuff, but outside of the tiresome, heard-it-all-before rants, it's not without its appeal.

The Bedford Diaries... is not merely the worst show of the vernal season but one of the worst ever concocted by the soon-to-vanish WB.

As games go, this isn't a bad one. But unlike horror movies, the Fear doesn't feel real, and the show is nothing special.

The big problem is Prinze himself, an actor whose work has shown much charm but not much range. Here, even the charm is missing as he dwells on every joke and gesture.

Everything about Criminal is patched together from other shows, from the FBI setting to the tired visual gimmickry.

The problem with Big Shots is that the men don't sound like anyone at all, male or female.

Collectively, Inconceivable seems a bit desperate and confused.

[It doesn't] live up to its camp catfight billing, in large part because Derek doesn't have this kind of drag-queen Dynasty performance in her. Not only does the role take more than the minimal acting skills she possesses, it also takes a level of on-camera comfort she has never mastered.

Ever since Sex and the City proved you could update Designing Women for a shallower audience by amping up the sex and removing the social content, TV writers have been trying without success to replicate the trick. Though Hot Properties feels too forced and a bit old-hat, it comes closer than most, thanks to a strong cast and a few genuinely funny lines.

[The original series] had energy and glamour and a self-aware sense of frothy fun, all of which are missing from this lugubrious update.

Templar is done in by being both too late and too long. At two hours it might have worked.

Everything about the show seems designed to misuse its stars and erase our memories of the better work they've done.

Tawdry, empty and inept, South Beach is UPN's too-late-in-the-game attempt to transfer The O.C. to the other coast.

Doubtless this kind of death-walking sentimentality has its fans. And most of those fans probably won't even wonder why some of the dead are stuck in the clothes in which they died, while others get to rent tuxedos.

Even if the performances were better and the scripts were funnier, Jezebel would still be saddled with one of the most preposterous, off-putting setups in sitcom history.

There's hardly a moment or performance in Rob that doesn't reek of the leftover and the second-rate.

You can think of it as Titus with kids added and talent removed.

Overagitated and overaggressive, Philipps is in constant motion; her face contorting, body twitching, voice braying. Against all odds, she has taken a show that was merely bad and made it truly unbearable.

Rules is one of those sitcoms that makes people who hate sitcoms hate sitcoms.

Not a single thing William Shatner's Dad has said in those ubiquitous CBS ads has been even remotely funny, a trend that continues in tonight's premiere.

As long as you're not expecting subtlety -- and why would you from a show starring Pamela Anderson? -- you should have a reasonably entertaining time.

It's kind of like Friends if every character had been outlandishly contrived, every situation had been stripped of every humorous moment, and every attempt at sentiment had felt cheap and unearned.

There are desires that are best left unfulfilled.

In short, she [Lohan] and her film are too awful to watch.

There's not a moment or character that rings true, and the only joke you're likely to remember is an anatomical gag you'd probably rather forget.

The season's worst show.

An appalling combination of precious and pretentious.

What we expect in exchange are a few thrills, a few jolts and some convincing destruction, none of which this cheap, embarrassing film delivers.

This is yet another terrible WB sitcom that never should have been made.

The sheer brazenness of its borrowed trashiness makes it oddly watchable.

It just isn't funny. At all. Ever.

The result is a show that tries to be adult and titillating but just comes across as juvenile and badly paced, as if the cast were waiting for laughs they must realize won't be arriving.

Seldom has a major network launched a show boasting as many terrible performances or jaw-dropper moments as this premiere.

Even with network movie expectations at an all-time low, you might expect more from November's only broadcast miniseries than an overblown repeat. We've seen enough bad weather and bad movies to last a lifetime; why anyone would want to see the two combine again is beyond me.

A show that was once dumb and offensive is now dumb and pointless.

Work It is dreadful almost beyond comprehension: witless, tasteless, poorly acted, abominably written, clumsily directed, hideously lit and badly costumed.

Brilliant, scathing, sprawling, The Wire has turned our indifference to urban decay into a TV achievement of the highest order.