"My Boys" is the kind of show that you're unlikely to seek out -- it's not TiVo-worthy by any means -- but if you happen upon it while channel-surfing, you could do a lot worse than pause and give it a shot.

Intriguing and confounding though it is, this is anything but easy, funsy television. In fact, there are times when a viewer may feel he's being punished almost to the same degree as Detective Hopper.

The pilot is admittedly a swift, brisk bit of escapist whimsy, but one has to wonder whether the idea of a heist every week will really prove tenable.

Carpoolers has a certain loopy cuteness to it, but the show lacks a beating heart, some strong central figure to care about and root for.

The characters are refreshingly non-hostile and converse in something other than brittle, cold sitcom-speak. But the serialized nature of the stories (subsequent episodes begin with the "previously on" feature usually seen on dramas) is no particular plus. And while the characters are sweet, they stop short of being lovable.

It doesn't go quite far enough into uncharted territory but gets off to a basically promising start nonetheless.

Despite the prestigious presence of stars such as Harvey Keitel, Michael Imperioli, Lisa Bonet and Gretchen Mol, Life on Mars, a new ABC crime drama, comes off as naggingly undistinguished.

Yes, they're wicked wacky, this group, but they also seem to have been torn from the pages of the Sitcom Writer's Handbook, their status as foils and fools having been measured out in carefully calculated amounts, the final goal appearing to be not so much nonstop hilarity as the reassuring guarantee of No Surprises.

Seriously, it is hard to take the show very seriously. It does traffic in issues and hot topics--and protests, in its way, the general corruption of the legal system--but not in particularly fresh or original terms.

Basically it's a half-baked adventure series, but it's July, and fully baked may just not be the way to go.

The basic formula is by now so groaningly familiar, and the premise so weak and weary, that there's only the "reality" part of this docu-game, or whatever it ought to be called, to tempt one's interest, and that not much.

Fallon is far from such stature, but though his opening night had disappointments, none were crushing or looked potentially fatal. Once Fallon relaxes, hunkers down and lightens up, the new "Late Night" could win over many a semi-conscious heart and mind.

There's little about Homeland Security USA that's warmly reassuring in the post-9/11 world. But the agents do behave with commendable civility (at least while cameras are trained on them) and apparent diligence.

Accidentally on Purpose doesn't have the smarts to be the salvation of a genre, but neither does it look like the torpedo to sink the ship. Not great, but nothing heinous.

Perhaps partly because the producers are determined not to let More to Love turn into a jeer fest, the show almost chokes on its own sensitivity and refinement.

Leno's funny, but in the safest way. He's adheres to the center of the exact middle road, so it's wrong to expect a revolution here.

Firefly does some pretty fancy flitting now and then, but for the most part it's a trip that's been taken too many times before.

The din of familiarity is fairly deafening. Brown's dead wife pops up for posthumous chats with him the way departed loved ones have already done on "Providence" and, more notably, "Six Feet Under." The town is right off a Christmas card -- picturesque and cozy and full of quirky locals. [16 Sept 2002, p.C01]

She's not bad, just flat; not annoying, just weak.

Where the previous movie aspired to be a camp classic, "Martha Behind Bars" takes itself more seriously, and less entertainingly.

For all the rewriting and reworking, the show needs a better premise and funnier dialogue and, most of all, a more commanding performer in the starring role.

At least [it] has possibilities and a good excuse for a giggle now and then.

Several steps up from "Becker."

Big Shots tries way too hard to be shocking and raunchy. The actors resemble kiddies at school trying to impress one another with the latest naughty word learned in gym class.

Despite plenty of surface sparkle, there is something discomforting about the show, and not just because it borrows tone and form from other sitcoms with youthful heroes, especially Fox's "Malcolm in the Middle."

Peeps of sentimentality only serve to emphasize the film's uneven mix of the sardonic and the heartfelt. Tin Man unfortunately seems as bereft of an efficiently functioning ticker as is the titular character himself.

There's a sort of comfort that comes from knowing you won't run into anything disruptively unconventional in a sitcom, and that would make Engvall as pleasantly lumpy as a dying couch.

As light summer fare, most of it done with a campy wink at the camera, Flash Gordon is by no means unbearable. But the fonder one's memories of the original, the more likely the viewer will want to send this Flash back.