A show that is so achingly familiar - in content, tone, stars, everything - that it's actually funny.

"The Nine" may well be the best of the crop - smart, clever and especially wise to the ways of this genre - but the challenge remains the same. This is work - admittedly often pleasurable work, but come 10 p.m. next Wednesday, we've got to do it all over again.

Gossip Girl actually isn't bad by the standards of the medium--with "The Hills" pretty much being the standard--and it's even surprisingly competent.

The pilot still is often clever and engaging, but confusing too.

A breath of cold, bracing and - bless it - fresh air. Eisner's fable is dark, almost impenetrably so, though skillfully rendered. Best of all, nothing here has ever been performed on reality TV, the best I can tell.

Like opening a time capsule. The boys remain the same. At least their snark has been updated for contemporary targets.

Michael is a clinically interesting personality type who is profoundly unempathetic, until such times as he is very empathetic. The wonderful creative trick of The Office is knowing exactly the right moment to humanize Michael.

Interesting detours, and a worthy show--but at times just a smidgen too self-righteous and melodramatic.

Hilarious implausibility, overheated dialogue and enough soap to do several loads of laundry are part of its appeal.

Garcia is a major-league cutie and sunny on-screen presence without being cloying. But enough with the filthy-rich-kid dramedies!

Tonight's premiere may seem like ridiculous twaddle, and it may feel like a major downer (and kinda sloooow), too, but maybe that's just Bruckheimer playing with our heads. In fact, Hour deserves a second look (next week is definitely better).

I do know something about TV shows, and this one works best when Anne Slowey is on camera (which is not nearly enough) and the program focuses on clothing - that great, exasperating, endlessly complicated art form known as "fashion."

Competent spinoff, but the formula tends to wear like a straitjacket on Whitaker.

It's all vaguely familiar and spirited enough to look like shiny summer fare. Just don't scratch the surface.

I laughed. Not often, or perhaps not often enough, but there was also enough McFarlane-esque gross-out sophomoric tomfoolery to keep even me reasonably entertained for a half-hour. Plus, good ol' likable Cleveland works well as a leading man.

Unfortunately, one show's a classic, the other a near knockoff. Nevertheless, Poehler's still got plenty of appeal here.

There's so much to like here. Now, all P&R has to do is become consistently likable.

The pilot is flawed (most pilots are), not particularly funny and even--bizarrely--deploys two bland jokes from the "Weeds" premiere at 10 (did the writers trade notes?). But Falco is good, proving that she can transcend Carmela Soprano.

The Narrative knot is further jumbled by all the head games Two plays on him and everyone else. Six is on shifting sand, and so, too, will you be.

Hot in Cleveland is a by-the-numbers sitcom with a couple of laughs, an inoffensive premise and four seasoned actresses who make the material much better than it is.

It's summer, expectations are low, and you could do a lot worse than this genial, softhearted import.

A by-the-book cop show without much bite or heft. But it's got Memphis and Lee.

Mostly this show belongs to Harmon, once a key member of the "Law & Order" ensemble. She's likable and intriguing. That salvages an otherwise average cop show.

Watch for any length of time and you may--as I did--have the eerie if not unpleasant feeling that you've been teleported to a decent network cop show from the 1970s.

Rubicon unfolds at a languid pace, dispensing information at the rate a not-quite-broken kitchen faucet dispenses drops. You want it to speed up. You want some urgency. You want a few more thrills in this thriller. At least this average TV viewer does.

Forgive the pun, but this brass needs polishing. The Green/Burgess team is one of TV's best and we hope they'll make this show as sharp and compelling as it should be.

Let's say Lone Star has its work cut out for it, and so does Wolk. His portrayal is too nice--too romantic, too good-hearted, too bland--to make Allen interesting, or at least convincing.

The Tenth Inning is dutiful, sober and thoughtful. No spitballs are thrown. No banned substances have been added to bloat it up to obscene, grotesque proportions. What is missing in at least tonight's installment is surprise, or the pleasant shock of learning something brand new or unexpected.

The show is scattered, slight and abominably self-promotional. But Michaels is so full of abundant - and infectious - good cheer that you tend to overlook these many faults. Fans will eat it up.

So far, so good. No late night talk show has ever been canceled after one edition--not even Chevy's--while first albeit abbreviated impressions of Conan are promising.

You can't help realizing that just by the act of taping a reality show, the Bruces--all nine of them--are already employed in a job, albeit a temporary one.

Middling start, but we've stuck with Rescue Me this long, and no point in bailing now.

Skies needs more horror. Less talk. More dramatic tension. Less (ummm) talk. More crazy, wild shootouts with the despicable aliens, who don't seem particularly bright, by the way. Less (all together now) talk.

You see no skepticism in Beyond. No analysis. No thinking. Just a lot of truly scary people yelling at very young kids.

A not-unpleasing comedy that takes time and commitment to grow on you. How long? I started to like it three or four episodes in. Seems like an awfully long time, no?

The performance tends to be monochromatic, and in the end, so is Mildred Pierce. What's especially enjoyable here are the minor performances--especially Pearce as the louche Monty--and the many almost imperceptibly small details, right down to the crockery in a restaurant.

This three-parter often lacks finesse and sophistication. The story is rushed or clumsily told, and the tone discordant....Watch for Atkins only. She's brilliant.

A not-bad formula gothic that'll rise or fall on the Dekker/Robertson chemistry; I'm betting on the former.

Gleeks will engage; hard to imagine who else will.

If you love Zooey Deschanel, this one's for you. If not, a pass.

Placid and often incomprehensibly bland, Combat Hospital still has flashes of intelligence. Definitely worth a second look.

Tatum seems genuine and almost desperate to forget the past; Ryan affects the pose that he couldn't care less. Over this is draped a weird "only-in-Hollywood" vibe--and a particularly sad one, too.

It's an exhaustive and exhausting film, but Garbus finds nothing that will change minds or reverse conclusions. The tragic void remains.

Familiar doesn't mean bad, and there's some likable charm here.

Where is this headed? Who knows? But it's heading there slowly. Nevertheless, the cast--Common, Meaney, Heyerdahl and Mount--is good, while the Old West still feels especially beautiful and perilous.

Everything fans loved about the first season--which improved dramatically over its course, by the way--is here. Everyone is not. McIntyre is good, but he's not Whitfield, either.

Way too obscure for the average viewer, Comic Book Men is strictly for Smith groupies, and there are probably enough of those to keep this six-parter afloat over its short run.

Clear away the soap bubbles, and you'll find ... more soap bubbles. But you won't be bored.

Pauly is still Pauly--but he's a more grown-up version who cares about his friends, ailing dad and career.

Stellar production, famous leads. What's missing? Heart.

Not terrible--really--but not yet remotely the winner NBC so badly needs either.

Maybe just crazy enough to be engaging in the early going. It's the long run that looks questionable.

Kaling's good (and always is), but the pilot is just not all that funny.

At least Emily proves she's got the chops to cast a shadow of her own.

Mann and HBO deserve much credit for profiling these extraordinary people. It's just too bad the execution tends to be a little long-winded or not nearly as expansive as it should be.

Not great, not terrible--just your standard-issue TV movie about a well-known historic event.

Above-average newcomer with a great actor in the leading role and frosty grace notes throughout.

Been here/seen this--a lot--but familiarity could work in favor of Deception.

Mostly boilerplate teen soap that lacks the (umm) zest of "Sex and the City"--a good thing, in case you're wondering.

Ambitious and intermittently entertaining, Zero Hour--and its celebrated lead--don't quite hit all their marks. But at least the mystery's a hoot.

We know how this ends (he becomes commish) but there's little evidence suggesting how or why that happens, and even less reason why we should care. Meanwhile, the best stuff in Golden Boy is the little stuff--sharp, brittle dialogue, nice performances and a street cred that's a cut above average.

The acting is solid all around--just not entirely convincing.

Some of Mamet's dialogue is certifiably awful and some certifiably brilliant, and the dichotomy is breathtaking.

A harmless and mostly fun little sitcom.

A reasonably competent soap.

"Brotherhood" is sharply written... Nevertheless, a heavy air of predictability hangs over "Brotherhood," which has a tendency to confirm viewer expectations instead of challenging them.

"Lost Room" is a shaggy dog story that gets shaggier with every scene. It's a tale as tall as the Empire State Building that threatens to topple in the merest breeze but - miraculously - never does.

Cane" is not a bad show, and it's sporadically a good one. Merely, great expectations have not been met.

A relentlessly grim and deeply depressing viewing experience.

A watchable and skillfully made telefilm (Jay Roach of "Austin Powers" fame directed) that is, nonetheless, marred by a melodramatic reliance on Good vs. Evil, and guess which side is which?

You get the sense that the filmmakers' vision and Wright's are never quite in sync--or perhaps are in sync too perfectly.

ABC hasn't provided much in advance to watch--smart network!--but there were some clips for Wipeout, and they were (seriously) hilarious.

In a word, The Listener is boring. Or, if you prefer alliteration, listless.

It's pretty much impossible to describe The Beast without getting tangled in the underbrush of potboiler cliche....The good news, in fact, the wonderful news, is that Swayze really is good.

The show juggled a lot of storylines last night, maybe too many, but the vibe feels right. "90210" is not a disaster, and the CW can now officially let out a deep ... sigh ... of relief.

Yes, cliches about wealth and privilege abound and are confirmed, or perhaps further embedded....But NYC Prep is so eager to establish a kinship with "Gossip Girl" that it's forgotten to tell much of a story.

After Spartacus blows most of its special-effects budget on the pilot, it settles into a not-bad sword-and-sandal genre series, a la "Xena" or "Hercules."

It's a Pre-Cambrian specimen that crept out of the primordial ooze of TV past, with a rhythm so profoundly familiar that if you happened to fall asleep during the first few minutes and woke up for the last, you'd be able to mentally reconstruct the entire program from scratch.

This isn't only "Frasier," recast as a standard family sitcom. It's "Green Acres."

Neither offensive nor particularly funny, it's merely another average, laugh-track-addled sitcom. The four leads are fine; they just need better material.

Honestly, it's a complete oddball with some charm and a few good lines.

Oh, sure, they can pierce necks and drink blood: Big deal! Any ol' vampire can do that. With a limited repertoire of vampire moves, the Radcliffs shoulda moved to Bon Temps instead of the Gates to learn some new tricks.

The cast has major potential, but Life Unexpected still needs to find an original and compelling voice.

Finding original humor in this tired old horse of a format may not only be difficult, but close to impossible.

Sarah Palin's Alaska is part-travelogue, part-"Todd and Sarah Plus Eight," part-slick political infomercial, and part Mark Burnett hokum - and oddly fascinating for all those reasons.

As a family, they are particularly eager to convey a sense of normalcy, but Sister Wives still doesn't have much interest in exploring the religious underpinnings or larger ethical questions of this anything-but-normal lifestyle. You're left without a solid clue why the Browns--all five of them--have gone to this much trouble.

Nice looking, but not nearly enough action.

Most of the material flatlines even before it begins, while never rising to the level of the HBO series to which it pays homage.

Sure, it all looks and sounds achingly familiar and blandly dumb, and maybe some of it is. But check the brain at the door. You could do much worse.

It's inert, lackluster and a trifle old-fashioned. Even the action scenes feel geriatric. It's also vaguely silly--a big reason the venerable good twin/evil twin gambit is better suited to comedy than drama.

A rare HBO misfire--but I do hope Amy finds peace.

There's a smoldering ember of promise here, mainly in the cast, even if the pilot tended to smother it.

Sure, there are some fun moments. Sure Brosnan looks mah-velous. He always does. But a little less plodding plot and a lot more action, please.

In spots, it's been turned into an antic Saturday morning cartoon. A shame.

Too brittle and full of bile to cleanly hit the target.

The River still has a quirkily eccentric charm. It's just so deliciously odd.

Not so much scandalous as scandalously dull.

Nice locales (Paris! Rome!), a couple of decent action sequences... but otherwise a tepid potboiler over-seasoned with too many spy tropes and a plot with too many gaping holes.

The show ambles along without getting viewers to particularly care about Alex or Pete. Without that requisite electricity, they're hollow, or just sad.

Nothing remotely lurid in either show [7 Days of Sex and The Conversation With Amanda de Cadenet].

Violent and dull.

Perception is both clever and ridiculous.

Not great comedy, but hopefully the beginning of long overdue recovery process for a talented, troubled actor.

Still sweet and sad, but often dour and slow, too.

It's all weirdly engrossing.

The Following is a bummer of significant proportions. Not that it's bad--it's not--but it's bleak, sordid, blood-spattered and creepy (though not necessarily always "creepy" in a good way, like "The Walking Dead").

Hannibal isn't quite the sum of its admittedly evocative parts. The story is often strained, or like that poor synth operator, overextended; the shocks tend to be operatic--oversold as opposed to a deft sudden jolt to emotional solar plexus.

A messy newcomer with a "Twilight" saga vibe and "Twin Peaks" DNA.

Falco--as always--remains one of TV's bright shining lights, but her Nurse Jackie suddenly feels like a work in progress.

It's still the Meredere (or Deremere) show, and Cristina's right. It's just ... so ... over.

I think I comprise a third type--a wary Weeds fan who's happy it's back but hardly ecstatic.

While "Men" may have the nutritional equivalent of stick gum, there's some genuine charm here along with a surprisingly seasoned and talented cast.

Cynical, randy, derivative and as wearily familiar as a cup of cheap joe, "Freddie" is also expertly cast, acted, written and directed.

"Teachers" isn't half-bad.

There is at least one troubling aspect to "Wishes" - an abundance of product placements within the show itself, which begs the question: Does salvation come with a price tag?

If Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 film was the Barnum & Bailey Big Tent version of the story of Exodus, this is the snippy little art house version - smarter (perhaps), a lot more accurate (perhaps) and indisputably duller.

The good news is that "Brothers & Sisters" isn't even remotely a disaster. The bad news is that it isn't even remotely a success either.

To love "Smith" is to love an ice cube. There may be a cold beauty to the craftsmanship of this enterprise, but there's a pinched, frostbitten heart at the center of it as well.

There's a wonderful cast here... There's even an intriguing core idea... But the show also feels phony from beginning to end.

Swingtown can't decide whether the '70s were transformative or deformative; there's a distinct ironic edge, applied mostly through the use of music.... But that edge isn't nearly sharp or funny enough (unlike "Weeds"), which tends to muddle the point of view.

Murdered innocents, a gory sword fight in slow motion and dry, witty, dialogue. Yes, it's all here, but what's missing is ... excitement.

The first half is tautly produced, before there's a dramatic--and dramatically dull--downshift that'll get you ready for beddy-bye.

The pilot is, in fact, baffling, and needlessly so.

Cho has long been an acquired taste, and - while her fans will luxuriate in these 22 minutes--few newbies will acquire that tonight.

Purefoy brings some raffish charm to the role, but these days, who wants to embrace raffish philandering philanthropists--particularly ones so defiantly dim.

The thing looks stylish, has a nice cast, is well written, and Bratt--scruffy, unkempt, a little more than off-center here--has the requisite intensity for the role. But it also is jarringly slick and borderline seamy; maybe that's just part of the fast world Banks and his cohorts find themselves in, but the tone ultimately robs the show--or at least the pilot--of heart and passion.

Problem here is that Beers is yoking his specialty with something that is not his forte--reality competition. The result often feels forced and frivolous.

Neither great, nor horrible, nor propitious nor preposterous. It was just a start, and in the late-night TV game, sometimes that's good enough.

Accidentally feels like a show that's nearly been focus-grouped into oblivion--with lines, beats and a cultural resonance that's so familiar you can almost see the baseball bat of predictability descending upon your head. So be it. Elfman's fine, as usual. This could be worse.

V has its fun moments, but mostly this is pure bunkum, or 1980s-era TV with a thin 2009 veneer.

Mildly amusing, though take out some of the harsh language and you've got more of a Disney Channel or TeenNick series than a memorable Fox one.

Creator Shonda Rhimes promised deeper, sharper medical stories this season to tether this show to the ground, and tonight Private Practice delivers those - even if the so-called "moral gray" area of each feels contrived.

I'm punchy after an hour-and-change of lame chases, inane dialogue, ludicrous plot twists and absurdist acting techniques. But by the end of this, I pretty much had a crush on Piper Perabo and Anne Dudek (who plays her sister), so I guess it was worthwhile after all.

That's a lot of pressure, even for Iron Jay, and maybe why Night One felt like a work in progress--terribly rough in spots, not bad in others.

Family is a trifle--part comic book, part kids' show--that is perfectly pleasant but without edge, bite or dramatic heft. With Chiklis aboard, it's like witnessing a concert pianist execute an elaborate version of "Chopsticks."

"Undercovers" is so content to lapse into genre conventions, that it feels complacent and banal. Worse, Kodjoe and Mbatha-Raw have such minimal chemistry that they seem to be shadowboxing most of the time.

Outlaw isn't bad as much as bogus. The whole faulty premise creaks and groans under the weight of a now-you-see-it-now-you-don't shell game, as key plot points zip by, then are quickly tucked back under their shell in the vain hope you won't remember them, or maybe take them at face value.

Body of Proof feels like a show that has nearly been nibbled to death by network ducks. You can almost see the TV executive Post-it notes on the screen.

Though Saget is amiable and likable here, the ratio of good quips to groaners is still only about one-to-four.

Some brief memorable performances, particularly Cusack as a tippling housewife. Otherwise, an inexplicable misfire.

Coin of the realm - pun intended - for TV games is familiarity, but that hardly confers an urgency to watch this one.

Skins is a bit clunky and even dated at times. Nor does it feel all that grounded in the real world, where it badly wants to be.

Matt Olmstead and Nick Santora are two solid guys who know how to make good TV and Lombardozzi and Alonzo are superior actors. But there are only flashes of promise here.

My heart tells me that any show that revolves around an honest-to-goodness native of Commack deserves an A+. My head tells me this one deserves a C.

Linney is a fine actress, but her material here doesn't match her talents.

Over these 52 minutes, she hits 50 states, so of necessity the pace is brisk and to the point. You don't really get to know anybody, but a sea of faces from the Mideast to the Far East tell her of their hopes and dreams in short, sharp sound bites.

"Suburgatory" falls flat--a flatness that will be accentuated by the smart suburban comedies that bookend it.

BFF is not bad--classify this as another Young Urban New York-based sitcom--but it's not great, either, or certainly not smart enough, or different enough, or flat-out funny enough to deserve anything other than the bleak future that now appears preordained.

The New Normal needs to take a deep breath, get off the soapbox and get funny fast. The right elements--talented cast and showrunner--are already in place.

There's an almost overwhelming been-there-seen-that feel to the pilot, which doesn't really offer any suggestion of "well, you haven't seen this."

Asylum has some good special effects, just not much of a story to hang them on.

We've been down this road before and all the signposts of Underemployed look the same.

The narratives here lack subtlety, historic context or--strangely enough--even drama.

Banshee is baloney, but viewed as pure camp, there are some good action sequences and amusing moments.

This Bible probably won't offend anyone, but it's hard to imagine it will inspire anyone, either.

It's the anti-talk show, the talk show that isn't a talk show, the talk show from another planet--that would be Staten Island--talk show. And yet, in a weirdly unexpected way, it almost works--and potentially could work.

It's bright! It's energetic! It has that sort of dialogue that zips, zaps and zings! It's even ironic! Yet, at its very core, Motherhood is completely vacant.

The Ex List--based on an Israeli hit ("Mythological Ex"), with whiffs of "How I Met Your Mother" and "My Name Is Earl" - is a flat-out great idea for a TV series. But Ruggiero (who's since left the show) needed a strong partner to reign in her worst impulses, like a running gag about shaved genitalia.

The Unusuals is not a good show; it is a messy, uneven, silly, inconsequential show.

Sure, The Cougar is idiotic--these shows always are. That's a large part of their appeal. But casting fouled up here.

Producers play this for laughs, though just slightly. (These are high school kids, after all.) Even so, the show's flat and almost stunningly uninformative.

It is so numbingly derivative--effectively a dull mash-up of "House" and "Private Practice"--that you quickly forget it's also numbingly silly. But then, maybe that's the whole idea.

Here's a fundamental truth: Family genealogies are fascinating--to the family in question.

Nice cast. Otherwise, charmless. Airless. Lifeless. (Blah, blah and blah.)

This is a shame and a waste of three gorgeous actresses, a wonderful actor (Gross) and an idea that--with a little more wit, smarter writing and less soap--could have yielded a winner.

Three Rivers is a masterful send-up of old medical TV show conventions, dating back to the '50s, with a parade of cliches so obviously and hilariously inane that you will laugh until your side aches.

King didn't actually write Haven but "developed" it for the small screen, which is a form of plausible deniability if things go wrong. With Haven--as somnolent as a summer afternoon--they most likely will.

Bland, with no pop or energy, Scoundrels limps sadly along.

Defying Gravity is a glorious, glimmering glop of foolishness--a spitball magnet of the first order that elicits jeers when it wants tears and catcalls when striving for philosophical heft.

Even with endless talk about genitalia and the things people can do to them, The League is surprisingly dull and slack - without snap or payoff.

The first episode is fairly execrable, but High Society settles down by the second, and we get a clearer--or at least less-boozy--view of Mortimer and her world.

Nothing particularly interesting or revelatory. For this to work--at least for viewers--The Hoff needs to move past self-parody, or at least take himself seriously. He tries here, but the exercise still seems flimsy and hollow.

Pilkington's musings are sometimes amusing and always pointless, but the animation almost totally nullifies the first and intensifies the second.

With material this thin, the actors can only do a competent job of mimicry. Mimicry is about all you'll get.

We've just seen this stuff too many times. Merely changing script specifics to Olympic references doesn't make it fresh.

There's desperation here, and if Happy Endings would slow down long enough to let itself breathe, it might find a footing.

A paint-by-the-numbers biopic with the dramatic vitality of a tree stump.

Reboots can work ("Hawaii Five-0"), but they haven't got a prayer if they lavishly, ludicrously, embrace all the hooey and hokum of the original. Welcome to the new Angels.

This feels more like a rushed afterthought by Fox instead of a fully developed premise that could carry a pair of seasoned actors to their retirement, or at least to a big payday.

What's fascinating is just how ruthlessly it has been edited, or (more likely) re-edited since the breakup to turn you-know-who into Little Ms. Perfect.

A couple of the lines are surprisingly offensive, and a couple others even surprisingly amusing.

Silly, but let's take the glass half-full approach. There's nowhere to go but up.

Unsupervised is a cheerier, less nihilistic "Beavis and Butt-head Lite," and not remotely as funny or trenchant.

Another insufferable nose-pressed-against-the-glass reality romp that says the rich are just like you and me--only rich, and exceedingly, tiresomely narcissistic.

Sleepy, listless, dull. But it has a great set; the beach and clouds on the horizon are alluring.

Some amusing lines, but otherwise a disappointing misfire.

A grim, macabre march through a terrible crime, deploying a bad twist--the voice of the deceased.

The party's over, the hangover's begun, and the final summer looks like it's gonna be a long and wet one.

A few emotional moments--most notably graveside ones--otherwise cool, self-aware and almost completely detached from the only reason this is on the air: Whitney Houston.

Liz & Dick is not a complete disaster, nor entirely is Lohan.

This is a very good cast laboring through terribly weak material.

Marta as Mob Mom is not fully believable or recognizable or (for that matter) relatable on any level. Without empathy, this "red widow" is just plain dull.

Cheer Perfection is numbing in its ordinariness--dull, trivial and never, ever outrageous.

A frustrating film that leaves the questions--pretty much all of them--unanswered.

Yes, "Deadwood" was incomprehensible last season. It is incomprehensible this season. Fans will be delighted.

[A] shamelessly derivative cop show set in the shamelessly overexposed city by the bay, with high-school-play-level acting performances which help make the overall effect cornier than a cornfield in Kansas. And yet ... and yet, there's something appealing about ABC's new cop drama.

Viewers will immediately locate the central flaw. If half of the contestants are so rich, then why go to all this trouble for $200,000?

There is no fear in this show or any of the doom, shame, ignominy or flat-out reprobation that comes with getting one's head handed to one by the Donald.... Without fear, there is no danger and without danger, no drama.

A mini-triumph of style over substance (of which there is almost none).

While neither awful nor even particularly bad, there is an earnest silliness to the whole thing.

"Standoff" does seem to emerge miraculously out of the fumes of '70s TV - a near-perfect reformulation of every bone-weary cliche, every hackneyed piece of cop chatter (Dan Tanna lives!) that last-century TV glorified in.

In its zeal to zing local TV news, "Dog" loses any flavor of authenticity, which is absolutely essential for effective satire.

It's got some charm and there's some humor here, too--mstly at Jones' expense. But seriously, don't you have something better to do tonight?

Jersey Shore is appalling, which is mostly its appeal, but it can also be funny, irreverent and breezily dimwitted--which is the rest of the appeal.

Dreadful. Or to use a more manly phrase, aaarrgggh, awful.

Absent a compelling core romance, and absent a passably beast-like beast, you're left with a sodden police procedural.

You have a life--live it, and don't watch this.

A thorough whitewashing.

What is missing here is heart, drama, and - most inexcusably - horror.

It's bland, tired, listless, and if the show isn't having much fun, how can it expect viewers to?

All this feels dutiful and rote - the CliffsNotes version.

A sweet, gentle, good-natured trifle that is (nonetheless) surprisingly airless and only rarely funny, if that.

This wanna-be's as dumb as dirt, and, as a consequence, even makes Hollywood seem more toxic than it probably is.

Call Girl is a dreary London day. A pass.

The pilot was so uneven that the whole affair nearly veers into "Reefer Madness" territory--the kind of over-the-top cautionary fable that subverts honorable intentions through hysteria or cliche. Despite its pedigree, Teenager doesn't appear to have ever stepped inside a high school, either.

There's no reason to pile on here, but this show needed many more months of gestation before getting thrown to the wolves.

Private Practice is hugely disappointing, and in so many ways that a mere review can't even begin to do all the problems injustice.

Knight Rider is a disaster, a remake so deliriously and delectably bad that you have to watch just to tell your grandchildren that you were there.

Sit Down is raw, vulgar and blithely offensive, with so many triple and quadruple entendres for so many sexual acts, I lost count.

Gary is a throwback to a time when laugh tracks were provided by evidently demented studio audiences; when one-liners were stoked with double entendres about sexual functions; when sitcoms had a beat, pace and predictability so primitive that they engaged only the reptilian part of our brains. To some viewers, this may be comfort food. To others: Hell.

As the woebegone divorcee with an antic streak and a full-blown need to get down, Cox is not believable.

We get some slightly bent soccer moms and dads debriefed by an impossibly cheery, cheesy, chummy game-show host. Showtime must have thought there would be great humor and irony in the mundane exchanges recorded here. But it miscalculated. Badly.

As awful as $#*! My Dad Says is, you almost detect an ember of promise here. Maybe it's Shatner--whom we will always love, no matter what--or maybe it's an illusion. But CBS needs to blow some life into that ember before it's too late. Maybe it already is.

It's lackadaisical, weary, bland and off-center.

The appealing cast valiantly tries to hack its way through the dense underbrush of jokes about frats and testicles and cannabis. But the harder they hack, the hackier it all becomes. Before long, the jungle has won. The show, and viewer, have lost.

Unfortunately, they've settled on far-too-easy and facile answers for the most part.

Leaden, dull, flat, tone deaf. Any reason to go on? Sure. This replaces another ex-"Friends" vehicle (Courteney Cox's "Cougar Town," which returns mid-April) that launched with both left feet, then dramatically improved. With all the on-screen talent here, this ex-"Friends" star could eventually shine, too.

Unadulterated rubbish, and exactly what fans expect. Bravo, Starz.

When you start doodling on the Internet instead of watching the show you are supposed to review, then either you, or the show, has a problem. I'm going with the latter.

What's missing here, besides laughs? Chemistry.

Yup, pretty awful.

Yeah, Brooklyn 11223 is awful, and awful not because it's inauthentic--it isn't necessarily to those being portrayed here--but because it's hugely phony.

it's a clanking, clattering collection of collagenous clinkers--of dialogue so inept, of acting performances so preposterous, of plot points so cliched that the only question worth posing is why someone of Weaver's stature would be caught anywhere near a turkey like this.

Grim, sad, painful.

Snooki & JWoww reeks of the end-times--the end-times for "Jersey Shore."

Dim, dumb, dull, daffy and dippy, Discovery should know better.

Part Dr. Jekyll, part Mr. Hyde and all dumb.

With Tools, there is no discernible style, or point of view, or voice, or humor that ever rises to the level of originality.

It is so ancient - in approach, tone, style and energy - that you can almost see the dust bunnies tumble across the set.

"What About Brian"... wants to be "thirtysomething" for twentysomethings, but it is clichesomething.

A slight, cartoonish, and terribly, terribly obvious dramedy.

"Donnellys" creaks and sighs, moans and slumps, and ambles along like a world-weary cliche, unable or unwilling to lift its head above the humdrum banality to which it has been consigned.

Because so many viewers will have seen this kind of reality show before, their minds may start to wander by the second commercial break.

It's slow. It's dull. It's listless.

"Emergency" is sodden, forbidding, a waste of 22 good minutes.

Why, then, this debacle, with bad jokes, listless lines and a parade of cliches? Beats me.

It's horrible, horrible, horrible, and you will hate yourself for laughing--although I'm afraid you will.

Based on the 22 irredeemably painful minutes TV Land offered for review, this show is clunky, sodden, cliched, drab, bland and terribly (terribly) weary.

A little too raw, especially in this hour.

Dreadful.

It's as if we've all passed this way (many times) before and could write the dialogue, act the scenes, predict the outcome all in our sleep.

If you expect the worst, your expectations will probably be met.