Despite all its contrived reality melodrama, ''American Inventor" features a steady stream of entertainingly kooky and cool creations.

It feels more like a programming move than a creative endeavor.

The premiere... doesn't inspire an instant commitment the way the premieres of "Prison Break" and "24" did.

The insular nature of D.C. culture -- and the lack of natural light in Congressional hallways -- seems to impose monotony.

We've seen this on-the-lam material many times before, and it offers very familiar family tensions.

The show isn't a debacle, but it's a disappointing comedy that doesn't live up to an interesting premise.

Much as I am compelled to watch "24," and admire its craft, I find that I can't take it seriously.

Some of the performances were strong -- Aguilera actually managed to make good with her yodel on "It's a Man's Man's Man's World." And some were underwhelming -- the Chili Peppers singing a listless "Snow (Hey Oh)" amid crazy confetti.

Written by Michael Hirst , who also wrote about Henry's daughter in Cate Blanchett's "Elizabeth," the series goes only rock-opera deep, moving full-steam ahead without much accounting for character motivation.

The show doesn't aim very high. It's only a little bit more than just another network sitcom about marital conflict and about how men will be men.

Shrek the Halls isn't much more than an extended skit: loud, hectic, unfocused.

The material isn't nearly strong enough to support a full half-hour of TV.

This version of his story arrives in a world that has seen not only "Lost," but "The X-Files," "Armageddon," and every other sci-fi show or movie that melds disaster, conspiracy, and teamwork. By now, it takes a lot more than clever ideas to keep us hooked.

Kelley's fascinating concept--the personal and sexual politics of an open marriage--is stifled by CBS prime-time superficiality and an inability to intimately explore intimate subject matter.

It goes through the motions quite competently and respectably. But it is nonetheless merely re-creating crime-series moves we've all seen many times before, with only the faintest afterimage of originality.

The show is an extremely mixed bag, but he's an extremely likable extreme interventionist.

Sordid Lives: The Series has a decidedly amateurish tone, with shoddy production values and acting that shows some seams. But the tone works in the show's favor.

Samurai Girl takes up a lot of time and space, but manages to do only one surprising thing: prove that it's possible to be action-packed and dull at the same time.

After the electrifying start, Fringe unfolds as an uneven, unwieldy piece of work that provides very few chills and thrills.

NBC sent the first hour of tonight's two-hour season premiere to critics, and it's sprinkled with some of the original fun: inventive special effects, a twist or two, some nifty gore. That doesn't stop it from being the same, familiar mess.

The series as a whole has a much better sense of itself, and a more confident tone, since Eli, his colleagues, and the viewers all understand that the guy is in fact a visionary. The coyness of season one is gone. The show, cocreated by Greg Berlanti, nonetheless falls short of being destination television.

Instead of breaking new ground, Crusoe falls back on hokey Saturday matinee swashbuckling, a treasure map, explosions, and jungle sets with fake torches that invite you to look for "Survivor" host Jeff Probst around the next boulder.

The style of the telling--heavy and, ultimately, hollow--perfectly matches the substance of the story. But of course that lugubrious style makes House of Saddam a slog, even while it is precisely paced and seamlessly directed.

24 makes a feint toward change, before getting back on the same old mechanical cowboy ride.

Ultimately, you'll want to think about Dollhouse more than you'll want to think about watching Dollhouse.

The show is neither here nor there, neither amusing nor affecting. It doesn't really call out for further viewing, which is not so unusual at all.

It’s hard to fault a drama that celebrates altruism and tries to glamorize social conscience. But I found myself cringing at the condescending scenes of our rich white savior wandering among the Africans with their colorful outfits and drum music, his checkbook at the ready in case he needs to bribe a local.

There’s a fine line between wink-wink clever and desperately cheesy. Tonight’s story crosses into Kraft Singles territory more often than it should, with bleeding statues and bloodshot eyes, sacrificial fires and some poorly acted demonic possession.

The stereotypes in play on Accidentally on Purpose are flat, if harmless, from the get-go.

As much as I like Parker and Kudrow and the subjects of later episodes such as Susan Sarandon and Spike Lee, I’m not sure I like them enough to care about their long-gone ancestors. It’s primarily when the stars’ family trees overlap with history--the Holocaust, for example, in Kudrow’s case--that the show feels like something more than Hollywood self-indulgence.

"Casanova" is a giddily unconventional tale of an adventurous youth, but then it's also a stock and inflated portrait of old age.

HawthoRNe seems bent on being reverential, complete with musical montages meant to break our hearts. It's not awful, by any means, just too good to be true.

The boilerplate talk format was reminiscent not only of Leno’s “Tonight Show,’’ but of almost every other late-night talker on the air right now.

Secret Girlfriend could add up to something worthwhile, with more of that kind of elliptical character revelation and fewer generic dirty-boy adventures. Ultimately, I want to know more about “you,’’ not them.

The raunchy comedy on The League had me laughing out loud a few times, but mostly I felt as though I’d seen it all done better before.

It's a gathering of familiar material that never quite distinguishes itself. I'd say the show is a "mash-up'' of its many influences, but that word implies intentionality and he Gates seems more like a lazy assemblage of cliches.

The Memphis location is meant to add distinction, but it doesn't quite work. The setting and the musical references seem oddly artificial, right down to Lee's stage performance, for which his voice has been dubbed.

The CW remake isn't awful, by any means. The pilot rushes ahead nicely, with a twist at the end that gestures toward many possible future plotlines. But we've seen the whole thing many times before.

Sure, it's nice to see Belushi in a new incarnation, and if I were trapped at a car repair shop in front of an episode I might be happy. But there are much better shows out there right now, and only so many hours in my day--and on my DVR.

There were no attempts during the hour to tweak the tiresome late-night moves for cable, to expand beyond what late night TV means on the networks.

It's an average piece of work, crammed with every frat-boy cliche you can imagine, and cast with actors who don't initially stand out.

If Mad Love pushes toward a more distinctive identity and grows beyond TV's standard two-couple romantic situations, there may be hope.

As entertaining as the crazy can be, there's an undercurrent of pathos in Celebrity Apprentice, hidden in the way these people bow to "Mr. Trump" and submit to the contrived challenges as if they're in rehab cleaning toilets.

You will absolutely, one hundred percent love every second of Showtime's new series, The Borgias. If you are a set designer, that is. Or a costumer. Otherwise, you might be mildly entertained and yet still feel a gnawing hunger for something more--a flavor shot or two with your creme de la creme.

MTV's scripted choices so far, including "Skins" and "The Hard Times of RJ Berger," have been interesting but ultimately disappointing. And Teen Wolf, so bland from the get-go, doesn't promise to change that streak.

It stays old school and unambitious in order to blend in well with the classic sitcoms on TV Land's roster. The scripts are more like excuses for the stars to go on camera and ham it up than well-constructed state-of-the-art comic material.

It's too bland to elicit very strong feelings either for or against. It's a legal drama with the same kind of buddy dynamic as "Psych" and "White Collar," and by the end of the hour--or, just for tonight, the hour and 20 minutes--I felt like shrugging my shoulders.

No, not hooked on this generic-looking crime-solver. The premise is nonsensical.

The underwhelming cast brings nothing to the boilerplate action. Kelly is miscast as a biker chick, and making Bosley a hunk with computer skills fails to add life.

The Playboy Club plods forward with no ballast, hoping that the vibrant early '60s music and the miles of bunny cleavage will compensate for the lack of original plotting and characters.

American Horror Story, from Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk of "Glee" and "Nip/Tuck," is a very standard creep-fest, an aggressively stylized mash-up of familiar haunted-house movies including "The Amityville Horror," "The Haunting," and "The Shining."

The show is a grim spectacle, and juicy bait for end-of-the-world addicts such as myself. But the living people in The Walking Dead, those uninfected with the mysterious virus, they are far less compelling.

The new series works just OK. The problem is, there actually isn't much of a need for the two dopes and their anti-wisdom anymore.

I love the way Allen Gregory talks down to every adult he encounters, as if they're members of a lower species. But the world built around that core of satire is a lot less promising.

The movie is so carefully stylized, any and all emotional import has been sucked out of it.

It doesn't add up to the most entertaining result, given the promise of the cast and creative minds involved.

If the series was actually a disaster, that might at least be captivating, but as is, Anger Management is just an average sitcom with a few good laugh lines here and there that could star any middle-age actor

Some of it was compelling and some of it tedious.

At its heart, The Mob Doctor feels more like a by-the-numbers CBS procedural than an "edgy" Fox drama.

I want 666 Park Avenue to be scarier and more interesting.

There is nothing exceptional or original about the show.

As it is, Kennedy buffs will enjoy Ethel enormously. Others likely will think it's about half an hour too long.

The Cheezburger team is vaguely entertaining, a reality counterpart to "The Office."

It's a bit of a mess. I found myself wishing that the series, which tracks a loosely knit group of nine friends in the Washington Heights area of New York, actually had more direction.

It's a sweet, somewhat bland portrait of an Everygirl coming of age in suburban Connecticut in the 1980s, dealing with the class Heathers--here, they're Donna LaDonna and the two Jens--and crushing on the cutie transfer student with long blond hair.

As actors, Lowe and Mitchell are burdened with shamelessly expository dialogue in which they must pretend to talk to each other when they're actually just explaining the case to viewers.

It’s a straightforward piece of work that, with some deepening of characters and a few detours from too well-trodden plot paths, could be a decent addition to the TNT lineup.

So, with all that talent in its back pocket, why isn't Spin City better? The much-hyped ABC comedy isn't a bad show, but it relies too heavily on Fox's charms and trademark double takes, lopsided grin and head scratches. And as considerable and familiar as they are, the quirks wear thin after a while. [17 Sept 1996, p.E6]

The scripts pander too much to the sensibility they should be mocking - that Hollywood is a playland for big boys with an eye for scrawny women. Entourage doesn't need to become moralistic or politically correct, just self-aware. If the writers took another step back from their immature characters, the show's satirical edge might be sharper. [16 July 2004, p.C1]

Essentially, Mary and Martha operates like an EZ-to-read Lifetime movie with HBO production values.

There are a few successful jokes here and there, and some able physical comedy involving Bornheimer and Gathegi, but those moments get lost in the shuffle of predictability.

Standup comic Cummings has potential, but no one could overcome these dated relationship cliches.

It should be more original, and the characters should be less forgettable.

The marriage of opposites is a simplistic and overused premise for a TV series, and ''Head Cases" doesn't travel very far beyond it.

[The show] isn't bad, but it's the sort of humor that has become so institutionalized it feels safe.

When the show isn't creeping us out with its grim atmosphere and effects, it's undermining its own potential with a self-consciously cutesy gang of heroes, ill-advised humor, and illogical situations.

It's a formulaic, lazily devised legal series that fails to surprise or amuse.

It's not a cool-science show, but its crimes blur together with what we already see on the ''CSI" series, and its supporting cast is indistinct.

Some viewers will be put off by the many unbelievable aspects of ''Commander in Chief," and not least of all by Geena Davis.

Despite the actresses' happy energy, ''Hot Properties" falls into terribly familiar comic territory.

OK, ''Four Kings" isn't the worst of its type, in that some of the jokes hit their mark.

These two extraordinary talents have done an average job with what is a surprisingly unimaginative premise.

"The Class" will never be smart, or clever, or original, but it does have a chance of becoming inoffensive and diverting.

"Freak Show" aspires to be both infantile and yet politically and socially astute, and it falls short on the latter. The satire doesn't quite hit its marks.

"Day Break" doesn't quite work, not only because of its redundancies but because its story line becomes simultaneously convoluted and pointless.

Despite its formal ambition, "Big Day" is disappointingly ordinary.

A tonally mixed-up disappointment.

It's a heavy soap opera that's so obsessed with the death of innocence, it forgets about the comic absurdities of decadence.

"Top Design" is so derivative of "Project Runway," from the setup to the structure of the judging, that it's impossible not to make a point-by-point comparison, with the new show falling short on every level.

Ultimately "The Black Donnellys" pales in the light of its lofty influences.

Alas, show creator David DiGilio forgot to put distinct personalities on his fast-moving bodies.

"Hidden Palms" would be more engaging and addictive if the acting were more distinctive.

The mildly amusing animated series would have packed more of a punch back when Americans were still a little shocked about Bush's seeming arrested development, but these days it comes off as merely facile.

The Company delivers no real chills, just a quaint Cold War amusement park ride.

This comedy is painfully broad, not to mention unimaginative and derivative of every newsroom sitcom from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to "LateLine" to "NewsRadio" to "Less Than Perfect."

The show might even have been engaging, if the one-liners came less frequently and the characters had a little more dimension. As it is, Sheldon and Leonard are merely laughable, if sweet, and they are even less fleshed out than the characters on "Two and a Half Men."

Despite a good cast led by Jonny Lee Miller as Eli, and despite the happy San Francisco setting, Eli Stone is a bag of too-familiar tricks.

The show doesn't ever really develop a comic center, or a heart. It's just a bunch of pointless monkey business.

Recount should be tight and tense, or, perhaps, wildly satirical. Instead, it just rehashes the mess all over again, in detail, with lots of news footage to support the dutifully invented backstage scenes.

Ultimately, that episode leaves only a vague sense of the rich territory that In Plain Sight could have explored with better writing.

It amounts to little more than a hokey infomercial for her brand.

This show amounts to yet another example of the pains people will take to appear on TV. By the end of the premiere, even the crabs are starting to look a little bored.

The movie looks great, like a very extended perfume commercial. But it has no substance.

There's probably a good, breezy romantic comedy somewhere inside The Ex List. But the premiere just made me cranky.

The premiere is sloppily made, as it careens loosely among plotlines and characters, but Morgan is a worthy character played by a promising young actor.

Valentine is sweet and amusingly cheesy but quite forgettable.

The crass gags--some of which I laughed at--ultimately overwhelm everything else. Better to dole out the tastelessness carefully, so that each crude zinger has some value.

The contestants are full-blown neurotics, and neophytes to boot: They're so young, inexperienced, and catty that they're difficult to like and even harder to watch.

It's the kind of story that asks you to either take off your thinking cap or be bored and indifferent.

The NBC talk show wasn't a legendary late-night train wreck so much as a train stalled between stations, going nowhere, filled with impatient passengers.

To stand out from the pablum of domestic sitcoms, the series needs to lose the working-mom cliches and be more willing to be mean.

Thomas, who has shown more originality with "Veronica Mars" and his new Starz series "Party Down," seems bent on making this concept work, despite its impossibly flat premise.

It's a stubbornly mediocre product that really, really, really wants to be "House" in a hospital psych ward.

The middling show plays too much like “The O.C.’’ with swords, crowns, and a cheesy CGI dragon (voiced by John Hurt).

Very little here feels original or even pregnancy-specific, from the farcically miserable boss (Chris Parnell, uncharacteristically unfunny, even when playing off a small dog) to the sassy best friend (Cheryl Hines, trying her best and smoking up a storm) to the see-it-from-a-mile-away office romance that threatens to unravel once the truth is revealed.

The pilot is clearly half-baked. Whether that’s due to Barton or deeper creative problems is unclear.

Where "Scrubs'' managed to plumb some truth about medicine and camaraderie Cougar Town is less funny, and sometimes kind of creepy.

Watching this show was the worst kind of sitcom experience--mediocre material, piercing laugh track noise, wasted talent, and a memory-impaired father who is fascinated by the fact that some men shave their “wiggly-dos.’’

For the characters and for the viewers, the miniseries is a plodding excursion on the road to nowhere.

It’s actually kind of depressing just how obviously “The Deep End’’ has been constructed of used parts from the likes of “LA Law,’’ “The Practice,’’ “Boston Legal,’’ “Damages,’’ “Eli Stone,’’ and “The Good Wife.’’

Those hoping to see a focus on fashion may be disappointed, but the show has one very strong element in its favor: Surprisingly likable taskmaster/boss Kelly Cutrone, head of the PR firm People’s Revolution, is the glue that holds the chintz together.

The show doesn’t have any of the expert pacing and plotting needed to make those segments fly. The action just tumbles forth.

The humor is madcap and inane where it should be wry, and the characters are stubbornly predictable. The editing of the show is swift and bouncy, as it is on "Burn Notice,'' but still the hour drags. It's just not much fun.

It’s a 100 percent predictable sitcom about singles who machine-gun one-liners at one another in the bars and bedrooms of Manhattan.

Hot in Cleveland is a broad, Vaudeville-style sitcom where everything--story, characters, sets, sound engineering--is only there in service of the rat-a-tat of one-liners.

There's absolutely no texture in the world of Rookie Blue, no effort to make it seem like anything more than a routine hour of TV.

The characters are so shallow, it's hard to invest interest in them.

Story-wise, the show is awful--stock characters, nonsensical motivations, obvious plot turns, bad acting... The routines--and the dynamic filming of them --are dazzling enough to distract from the surrounding lousiness.

It's stupid, but not in the brilliantly stupid and farcical manner of "Arrested Development." It's just a fast-paced, empty, odd-couple comedy that is irritating before the end of the first episode.

The light-hearted international espionage series is predictable, pointless, and, worst of all, cutesy.

I do have a problem with the way $#*! My Dad Says is so blandly traditional, so predictably brash, and so lazy.

It's trite and forced, a collection of cardboard types rather than characters.

It has become a powerful, promotional machine, long on hype and short on the human feeling--the glee--that once made it so addictive.

Every scene, no matter where it's filmed, inevitably seems to become some kind of Palin political dispatch.

Everything is all up in your grill. The touching moments aren't just touching; they're mauling. The life lessons aren't just suggested; they're shouted at you.

Alas, HBO has come up with a dull, unimaginative interpretation of the podcast, essentially giving us animated versions of the three men sitting in a sound booth talking into microphones.

The three couples featured on Perfect Couples take on predictable lifestyle issues such as mancaves and game night with all the spark of a wet matchbook.

No, the only reason to tune in for The Lost Valentine is, of course, Betty White.

It's not a complete disaster, thanks to supporting actress Allison Janney and a smooth single-camera tone. But it's a quintessential "so what?" sitcom that practically begs you to damn it with extremely faint praise, mincing your words down to the blandest of neutrality.

It's too bad Body of Proof is so unambitious and, at times, clumsy, as it goes through the motions of solving murder mysteries. If the writing were fresher, Delany might have a better chance of finally creating a dynamic and successful drama.

If the makers of William & Kate had loaded up their movie with higher-octane performances, and if they'd aimed for more humor, flash, and cynicism, they might have come up with a more engaging piece of camp. Instead, they deliver a royally forgettable bit of banality.

It fails to transform those events into anything valuable or special, beyond docudramatic re-creation. Ultimately, it's scope is too big, and it fails.

Combat Hospital is as bland and generic as its title.

All of these actors are pros when it comes to timing, moving quickly past the worst jokes before you realize how bad they are.

Like everything else in A&E's Bag of Bones, it is hollow and--boo!--not scary.

Prepon manages to give Chelsea's raunchy lines and irritating actions--including the brush-off of that opening DUI--more zing and charm than the material merits.

The cases themselves are weakly constructed, with more holes than a box of doughnuts.

Sullivan & Son is a contrived sitcom with nothing original or new to offer.

The stubbornly conventional scripts, the overfamiliar characters, and the old-fashioned, machine-gun comic timing undermine any possibility of freshness.

Made in Jersey is lame and clichéd, but it's far from the bottom of the barrel on network TV.

Even the actors seem grudging as they play their predictable parts. They never succeed in creating a sense of ensemble, enabling us to feel how these characters have known one another for decades.

Southie Rules definitely has the characters. That's the positive news.... [But] Southie Rules is woefully short on story line, and so the producers have clearly set up situations and edited episodes in order to provide viewers with a narrative.

Show creator David Schulner has failed to craft a workable TV concept, but he does keep the hours tumbling forward effectively, bringing in a number of subplots--Jason's wounded ex-girlfriend, a hostile co-worker trying to bring him down--to distract us from the nonsense.

Cult is too messy and unnecessarily complex to be the show it could and should be.

The kind of TV product that's so instantly recognizable you feel like you've already dreamed it from premiere to finale. It might as well be over before it really starts.

It's subject matter that speaks to the train-wreck spectator in all of us, and designing a weekly show around it is a little uneasy-making. It's dangerously close to "reality" programming. That said, Special Victims Unit is an uneven hour that could improve with some aggressive fine tuning.

As is, The Bible sometimes feels too facile, like a colorful Sunday school pop-up book come to life, albeit one with much more graphic violence (which some parents might want to preview before sharing with their kids).

If Red Widow were more psychologically twisty or more excessive and over-the-top, it could be more engaging. As it is, the show is ludicrous and not much fun.

There is no sense of who Cheney is, beyond his restatements.

Everything aside from Pacino in this movie is surprisingly ordinary and lacking.

The story wanders slowly and aimlessly when it should be tumbling toward a climax. It’s a ride on flat terrain.

The Goodwin Games isn’t awful, really, but it might have made a better light-hearted movie than a weekly series. The concept is so limited, it gets very tiresome very fast.

As unimaginative as its title.

It's a bland Spielberg wannabe that doesn't succeed in evoking much creepiness or wonder

Unfortunately, despite an interesting pair of lead actors, ''E-Ring" is stubbornly conventional and bland.

It's not awful, exactly, but it's so willfully bleak as to become monotonous.

If the writers and actors were willing to get a little campy, if they lifted the group's obnoxiousness factor over the top, the show might have some entertainment value. But as it stands, it's an hour spent watching dull, pretty people work very hard to be hipper than one another, as well as hipper than you.

Relies so heavily on... amateurish re-creations that it undermines its otherwise mind-blowing survival stories.

The production doesn't engage the ears, the eyes, or the laugh muscles. It engages only the snooze button.

These actors deserve better material.

What makes a cloney-baloney reality show such as the new ''Skating With Celebrities" bearable? For me, it's the constant awareness of how ''Saturday Night Live" might milk its silliness.

A charmless sitcom with absolutely nothing original in it.

The show strained to create oh-so-legendary moments. Alas, most of the efforts were as unsteady as Chris Martin's voice.

Pointless and inert.

It's kind of boring.

It all feels inessential.

It walks the walk of Important Series Television, but no matter how hard it tries to be gutsy and existential, it rings hollow.

The show takes the characters' angst and obsessions much too seriously, elevating their histrionics to soap-operatic levels when it should be flirting with satire.

Too much like a dull season of MTV's "Road Rules," without the women.

It's thoroughly artificial and proud of it. The four women are a little too attractive, their comments and voiceovers feel a little too semi-scripted, and everyone is a little too willing to ignore the camera crew on the dates.

Certainly a superhero needs to have gravitas, but Jones takes it too far -- further than Wesley Snipes in the "Blade" movies.

With its population of must-love oddballs, the series drowns its cool sci-fi concept in a flood of "Northern Exposure" quaintness.

The tonal dissonance in "Standoff" is deafening, like pairing up, say, Jewel and Meat Loaf for a duet.

"The Path to 9/11" never quite arrives at narrative coherence and depth.

"Jericho" turns nuclear catastrophe into an excuse for a series of suspenseful "24"-like set pieces, and the result is a ham-fisted concoction overcrowded with incident and rigged thrills.

Feresten's not awful, and the show he has built around himself with video segments has a few laugh-out-loud moments. But he clearly needs to find his identity behind the desk.

If they can emphasize the science over the tiresome characters, they might add a few ounces to this lightweight copycat.

MTV's latest invitation to watch dislikable people do unattractive things.

" 'Til Death Do Us Part"... almost contains enough comically clumsy filming and overacting to achieve camp. Almost, but not quite enough, even with Waters doing his twisted Rod Serling bit.

A very hit-or-miss improvisational exercise, with miles of miss for every inch of hit.

No, "Drive" isn't awful... But the show still lacks the charisma that a serialized story requires to keep viewers coming back for more.

"Heartland" doesn't use its talent in service of anything other than predictable, inoffensive stories and a contrived relationship between the two leads.

The wacky situations and jokes on The Bill Engvall Show seem almost willfully dated.

Jones plays her clichéd role to the hilt, which is clear early on, when she paints her toenails pink while driving her car.

But even if you pushed those questions about production ethics out of your mind last night, the Kid Nation premiere was still an uncomfortable, irritating, and narratively subpar hour of TV. It was a disorganized mess that milked its young cast for cacophonous psychodrama.

Much of Moonlight is amateurish, but nothing is more amateurish than the artificial chemistry between O'Loughlin and Myles.

Everything other than Harmon, who has thrown her "Law & Order" reserve out the window, feels unnatural and contrived.

Halfway through the premiere, the basis for the entire show is already worn thin.

It's a dour retelling of the L. Frank Baum story, and it just keeps sinking further and further into pointless thematic complexity and visual density.

Let's hope Welcome, as forced as "Christine" is relaxed, runs itself into cancellation sooner rather than later.

Oh big sigh indeed. Quarterlife, is just plain creepy.... Rather than developing a clique of layered individuals, as they've done before, Herskovitz and Zwick deliver a small culture of flat, irritating generational emblems.

It's entirely paint-by-numbers, a formulaic dating contest colored in with all the too-familiar characters, from the butch Matt to each of the ladies, city gals looking for a real man who doesn't bother with all that metrosexual nonsense. This is reality by rote.

NBC's new anthology horror series is, like far too many TV horror anthologies before it, just not scary enough.

These are some of the most lackluster, unimaginative trials brought to TV in years, as every defendant's guilt or innocence is written all over his or her face from the get-go.

90210, the CW remake that premiered last night, is pretty bad.

This is the kind of dull-witted, over-laugh-tracked, artificial sitcom that makes you wonder if the Hollywood honchos ever got the memo about the 21st century and all.

This new CBS series is just too silly, as it tries to mix up science and crime-solving like a sloppy kid with a chemistry set.

Crash tries too hard, and fails hard too.