The shame is that Practice has a fine human cast... But Kirk and his cohorts quickly get taken down by the barrage of stupidity the show sends their way.

[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.

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

Nothing in The Neighbors rises above mediocrity, and too much falls beneath it.

Good dramas have been made from much less, but Widow's indifferently performed, dishwater-dull opener give us no real clue as to who Marta is or what she wants--or why anyone would want to watch her pursue it.

Drama requires more than mere stenography. It requires creating full-blooded characters we're willing to believe, giving them lines we think some human being might actually say, and hiring actors who are able to say them without allowing us to see any artifice underneath. At those tasks, Gupta, Kelley and most of their cast have failed.

Enough to make you re-evaluate the virtues of celibacy...Here's a thought: Perhaps these whiners can't find great guys because they're not so great themselves. [5 June 1998, p.12E]

They're kids, exhibiting the kind of behaviors, good and bad, that kids do in real life. That's not awful or particularly surprising--but it's also not even remotely entertaining.

The result is a deadly, deal-driven mistake that takes a network that has made great sitcom strides forward one unfortunate step back.

Despite the obvious, desperate attempts to inject youth appeal, Conviction is as tired as it is undistinguished.

The season's worst show.

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

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.

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

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.

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

You'll eventually be able to tell one gun-toting, ax-wielding character from another. You're just not likely to develop a desire to spend time with them.

Hands down the worst new show of the season.

An appalling combination of precious and pretentious.

There are desires that are best left unfulfilled.

[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.

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 stars, all of whom have done better work in better projects, give it their all, but the show is too snide, condescending and unpleasant to be salvageable.

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

Seldom has the drive to do good works been as alarmingly, offensively presumptuous.

The show seems to vanish as it's happening, leaving behind nothing except a vague feeling of being mildly annoyed. It doesn't just fail to leave you laughing. It leaves you, period.

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.

A badly acted, clumsily constructed "Starsky & Hutch"/"Miami Vice" revival that imposes fictional clichés on top of harsh realities.

The actors do their best, but most of what they're doing is hopelessly, witlessly predictable.

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

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

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

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.

Poorly cast and performed (including an embarrassing turn by Val Kilmer), XIII is shot so murkily and staged so badly, you can hardly tell where people are, let alone where they're going.

Gratuitously cruel and mind-numbingly dull, Stylista pretends to be "fashion forward" while it apes everything that has gone before.

Badly cast and sadly inept, this not-quite comedy follows the Goddess of Love (Jaime Murray) and her clan as they try to match mortal soulmates.

That Suspect is a spinoff of Criminal Minds, network TV's worst series, is just the dung icing on the dirt cake.

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

The characters here creak, including the talking bear who mirrors the alien in American Dad and the dog in Family Guy, and the watered-down setup now feels like a copy of a copy of a copy. What's worse, in three episodes, there's hardly a laugh to be found. Bad taste, we'll accept. Boring we won't.

Rather than art re-creating and explicating reality, How to is art mimicking reality shows, with all their annoyances and posing.

You start with the minor annoyances, like their fondness for silly nicknames ("Big Dave" and "Root Beer" standing in for Road's "Big Cat" and "Physical Phil"), and move on to the really big sins, such as their inability to create interesting characters or their habit of writing dialogue that either hits us over the head with exposition or pulls us out of the story through ridiculous, artsy flourishes.

There's not a moment that isn't ridiculous or false, as the characters continually collide on the street (small town, that Austin). And worse, there's not a single reason to care.

If you're looking for a quick refresher course in what the U.S. Marshals do for a living, or just need to know how many fugitives they caught last year (more than 90,000), Chase could be the show for you. But if you're looking for actual TV entertainment? Heavens, no.

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

A show that feels like it's multiple terrible shows in one. It's like he pitched four bad ideas to NBC, and the network decided to pour them all into one hour.

You might be willing to overlook the show's structural flaws if the cases themselves were wildly compelling, but unfortunately, they are of a piece with their misguided series.

Meryl Streep would have trouble making Gerstein's never-been-there, never-done-that creation sound anything but ludicrous.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

An atrocious sitcom that can only be understood as a threadbare network's attempt to empty its larder before the fall restocking.

As its name indicates, it's half Mob drama, half doctor show, and all terrible.

ABC's upcoming Malibu Country is a more egregious waste of talent. But only Emily can provoke an almost irresistible urge to scream, "Shut up, shut up, shut up," at your TV screen.

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

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