Many of the scenes with the teens seem staged, especially tonight's climax. Still, the Bruces aren't anything like the delusional couples who populate Bravo's "Housewives" shows. This is a functioning family trying to survive a dysfunctional time.

V is stuck in the past of a 25-year-old show. It needs to shed that skin.

NBC's The Cape aspires to be "The Dark Knight" but unfurls more like the campy 1960s "Batman" TV series.

You've been three rounds with this story before. Lights Out sets you up for a sucker punch.

Comparisons to the BBC show are unavoidable since the first two episodes are practically a scene-by-scene reshoot of the original's opening. The stars even look like doppelgangers of the English cast.

For a show that starts out with so much energy, Breakout Kings quickly settles into a procedural rut.

Unfortunately, Iron's not in every scene, and the 100-minute premiere, after a promising opening, becomes bogged down in political intrigue as his rivals scheme to remove the new pope.

Those who love the books will probably geek out on the series. The rest of us may have a harder time sitting through Game of Thrones.

It's wonderful HBO is willing to subsidize so many artists, but Treme feels more like a tax write-off than an actual series.

Why Not? With Shania Twain rings of a last-ditch effort to avoid counseling.

You just have to wade through a landfill of lame camp and gratuitous weirdness to get to the pop center of Gaga's HBO show.

Becoming Chaz never really gets under its subject's skin.

TNT bills Franklin & Bash as a dramedy, but it is more accurately a comedic bromance laced with pop-culture jokes and a dash of legal jargon to trick you into thinking you spent an hour on something of substance.

The uneven 10-episode series shifts from pedestrian cloak-and-dagger to camp.

Call me bored. Encore's adaptation of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, the cable network's first original miniseries, is about as thrilling as a three-hour tour of Boston Harbor while blindfolded on a sweltering summer day.

This is dumb, not-so-much fun shoot'em-ups.

This remake of a tart British sitcom of the same name starts with the moment that has killed many a show: its two main characters in bed, post-booty call. It's anything but romantic.

Right now, Up All Night is the TV equivalent of a glass of warm milk.

NBC, together with Academy Award-winning producer Brian Grazer ("A Beautiful Mind"), tries to duplicate the success of AMC's "Mad Men" but cribs the wrong details with a woefully untalented cast, mixed feminist messages and a melodrama that is at times laugh-out-loud funny.

There are guilty pleasures and then there are ones for which you just feel guilty about sacrificing your valuable time. Revenge is the latter.

It's hard to imagine viewers voting with their clickers for this pretentious political soap.

Grimm has a low-rent Saturday Syfy vibe to it.

Hell's greatest sin? It's often laugh-out-loud funny.

While the pace of the series definitely picks up in the second night, Bag of Bones doesn't pull off the scares of King's previous works such as Misery" or "The Shining" nor does it have the poignancy of his "The Shawshank Redemption."

Pants hits the tube already out of style.

As the hour proceeds, the tether to sanity--or at least common sense--frays.

MTV's documentary series "True Life" has walked this territory before with far more compelling subjects.

NBC's newest drama Awake adds a drop of fantasy to its crime procedural formula and then practically buries it in musings about the mysteries of the subconscious.

If GCB wants to soar to heavenly numbers, it better let the devil out to play.

Like the look of the ladies, the show is gorgeous, but it needs to reveal some substance.

Alas, most of the other characters are so weakly sketched, they don't make a ripple.

The bromance is over before it starts.

Unlike the similarly post-apocalyptic "Walking Dead," there's never much tension on Falling Skies.

Fox's "Raising Hope" manages to be both more outrageous and realistic than this flimsy, forgettable time-waster.

Anyone really thirsty for laughs will probably come up dry.

While Boss has delusions of Shakespeare, it's not even in the same league as the TNT revival of "Dallas."

[The] premiere serves as a rocky reboot to the once robust hit.

This show almost works, and credit has to go to star Jordana Spiro ("My Boys"), who imbues her Dr. Grace Devlin with equal parts brass and cleverness.

The ninth and final season premiere of NBC's The Office definitively answers a few key questions about the cogs at the middling paper company Dunder Mifflin--if anyone out there is still interested in the once smart, now just silly sitcom.

Despite their [Mindy Kaling and B.J. Novak's] experience, the show plays like a blind date gone bad.

There are elements of the "Friday the 13th: The Series" and any J-horror film here, but the frights are few.

Reba's smile can warm almost anything. But it's not worth sitting through this recycled sitcom for it.

Wedding Band is frequently vulgar, and few punch lines can be quoted here, but it has such affection for all its characters that you might be troubled that you can't return the love.

Seal Team Six won't sway undecided voters; it also won't entertain many, either.

Your enjoyment of the show will hinge on how much you can stomach the antics of the First Screw-Up.

There's not much new to see in this neighborhood, but the producers have done a superb job of scoring the series with fresh music.

A slow-pokey drama punctuated by shocking violence and sex.

Williamson has crafted a pilot tense and frightening. But in the subsequent three episodes, The Following deteriorates into a serialized version of CBS' "Criminal Minds." ... After four episodes, this viewer was weary of seeing women terrorized.

The overarching premise of the 15-episode season cracks and crumbles under the slightest scrutiny.

Russell and Rhys seem adept at the disguises and stunts. But their characters are practically flipped from pilot to second episode, and some of the black humor here is awkwardly executed.

Series creator, director and writer David S. Goyer (scribe for Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy) twists the already amazing life of the 15th century artist and inventor into something fantastical--but not altogether convincing.

The show’s pacing, particularly in the first hour, could trigger a nap.

[The] clunky scenes work thanks to the exceptional cast. These actors can sell anything. Almost.

Unfortunately, the drama between Federline and Jackson seems to be about the only reason to tune in, making this serving of “Fit Club” especially tasteless.

He seemed nervous in a rapid-fire monologue that took shots at Dick Cheney, Alan Greenspan and Tiger Woods.

It’s a series that zips along in one direction, suddenly accelerates in another and veers out of control into a swamp of sugar and schmaltz.

There are too many instances of people conveniently running into each other. In short, common sense is missing from Justified.

After the initial disasters, the rest of the show flatlines. Just as in the “CSI” universe, the lead characters are there to serve up exposition.

Party Down, about a group of aspiring Hollywood types working as caterers, returns for a second season of stale jokes.

The alleged comedy follows this blended family's attempts to get along. The laugh track works harder than anyone here.

Many of the jokes are non sequitur riffs that turn into endurance tests. The cast seems to be aware of it.

Tom Welling's picked up all the wrong lessons from behind the screen, from premise to character development. Hellcats is poorly paced and its attempts at comedy and drama stumble.

O'Connell glides through the show on his smile. Belushi isn't as bad as one might expect, which, granted, isn't much of a compliment. He reins in the comic buffoonery, and if the scripts get better, he might prove to be up to a dramatic role.

The auction segments are fascinating as buyers become locked in bidding wars and props sell for obscene figures. But the series could ultimately hurt Maddelena's business. The means by which he authenticates certain items, at least as presented here, is not convincing.

Now this show plays like a cross between any generic CBS crime procedural and the network's "Bones." Human Target needs a course correction.

Her tips could be found in the nearest public library. And stretched to an hour, Jobmother seems downright inflationary.

Bob's Burgers arrives cold, with a touch of E. coli. Beware.

Bates, who remains a recurring guest on the network's "The Office," brings heart and intelligence to a role that is not nearly so well-defined on the page, proof that casting can elevate any vehicle.

TV Land tries to build on its surprise sitcom hit "Hot in Cleveland" with Retired at 35, a spectacularly unfunny show that reflects a parent's worst nightmare: A grown child moves home for no good reason and shows no sign of budging.

The more [Vance (David Walton) is] allowed to cut loose, the closer Perfect edges to real humor.

At 60 minutes, these episodes will test even loyal fans, although some viewers will discover a new respect for Melissa, who displays patience not unlike Job in her trials. Still, Joan is her mother. Everyone else can skip the guilt trip.

Every character has a voice-over, info dumps for back story that are either irksome or unnecessary.

Traffic Light is the kind of sitcom that revs from zero to zero with laughter.

The story reflects how badly these procedurals have degraded over the years, forced to come up with increasingly more over-the-top motives for murder. If cookie-cutter cruelty is your nightcap, this show will send you well off to sleep.

While the miniseries is more faithful to the 1941 James M. Cain novel of the same name, Todd Haynes' adaptation (he co-wrote the teleplay, directed and acted as one of the executive producers on this five-part bloated whale) is so draining, it might make you anemic.

Why is she The Protector? Why didn't Lifetime call this series "The Protectors" and give Campbell-Martin and her character equal footing? As this show proves, some mysteries aren't worth solving.

By the end of the third episode, I was tired of all the sodomy jokes. Wood is an appealing comedic lead, but he's working off scraps. Be charitable and chalk up Gann's appeal to cultural differences.

Basic cable is known for carving out niche audiences, but it's hard to imagine this "Friday Night Lights Shrink" will score with many.

Against the Wall has little ambition.

CSI producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Amazing Race producer Bertram Van Munster combine the worst elements of their shows for this six-episode time-killer.

Russian Dolls reinforces every negative stereotype about Russian women.

The drama is swamped by the saccharine cliches.

D'Elia sparks well off Cummings, but this show demonstrates her true talents lie offscreen.

Whoever reads those stilted lines, it won't make a difference. These angels never take flight.

It's all about their attitudes, and on that front, Man Up! is a downer.

I didn't laugh much. I did, however, check my watch, still secure on my wrist, to determine when the show would be ending.

CBS has churned out yet another lowest-common-denominator sitcom.

Like "Lost," the show is burdened with flashbacks and divides its time between the present and the prison 50 years earlier.

It's disappointing this animated series is so tame.

You'll be left tapping your feet all right--wondering impatiently if there's any sparkle under this drudgery.

The makers of the "River" deserve credit for spilling so much of their "X-Files" myth-ology from the start, but there's not enough reason to book passage on this voyage of the bland.

Shahs of Sunset, which plays like a cross between "Jersey Shore" with an older cast and "The Real Housewives of Oblivion."

Fashion Star is a skimpy little show. You might buy something in the evening, but beware those morning-after regrets.

You'd have more fun watching somebody put up drywall.

Don't worry about forming a lasting relationship with Best Friends Forever. It has all the signs of a quick flame-out on the NBC schedule.

Controversy aside, Life seems to have no meaning beyond giving the 21-year-old a platform for her parenting views and criticism of Los Angeles.

It's not a Comedy Central spoof, but it skews ridiculously close to one.

Despite all of TLC's crafty maneuvering, this is a family that likes to laugh with each other. The rest doesn't seem to matter.

The first two cases, involving a gang of murderous thieves and the death of a personal trainer, are ho-hum. McDonnell, a fine actress, finally has a chance to inject some dry wit into her stoic investigator.

NBC's Animal Practice is a lot like ABC's "Grey's Anatomy," except it's furrier and it's a lot less funny.

How you view it will depend on what you consider the proper care of collectibles and the corruption of a minor.

It's more closely a cross between "My Cousin Vinny" and "The Good Wife," with Janet Montgomery ("Entourage") a dull stand-in for Oscar winner Marisa Tomei.

It's a bad omen when the show repeats one of its catastrophes next week, just amped to a grislier level. I was bored.

Finally you get the sense that Meryl Streep's daughter is coming into her own as an actress and even a lead. But Emily needs a script doc, stat.

Those who worry about the teenager's well-being will find little comfort in this series.

The players seem to spend much of their time entering and exiting the same drab offices while shoveling exposition at one other.

The background music works muscularly to pump up interest, but the story's pacing is ponderous.

There's more truth in 10 minutes of Animal Planet's "Finding Bigfoot."

Vivian's secrets are predictable. Judging from the first two episodes, Joanna is not much of a sleuth. Scene set-ups go nowhere. Minor characters are brought in, disposed of, and the show bumps along to another complication.

There are some lovely shots of South Boston. Like everything else here, they've been staged.

The musical numbers are competently staged, even if they often play like filler to underscore character montages. The plots mosey between drama and comedy and never hit their marks.

You’ll be able to spot the front-runner and eventual winner probably 10 minutes into the show.

This is “The Da Vinci Code” crossed with “Indiana Jones” with dialogue courtesy of a Magic 8 Ball.

Meloni is smirky, Hargitay whiny, and transferred-from-"Homicide" detective John Munch (Richard Belzer) seems out of place. But Wolf has proved an expert at integrating cast changes on "L & O," and we have to believe he'll iron all this out. [20 Sept 1999, p.36]

Can we please have a moratorium on voice-over narration? This lazy device is being overused to convey what simple dialogue should. In John Doe, the title character's innermost thoughts won't stop. [19 Sept 2002, p.48]

There probably hasn’t been so much talk about sex crammed into one hour since MTV’s “Loveline.” Much of it cannot be repeated here. Instead of being titillating, it’s tedious, the equivalent of three cold showers.

The Shield gives viewers so much Chiklis, it should be called "The Commish 2." The pilot opens with the unlikely scenario of the portly Chiklis chasing down a teenage drug dealer. It only gets worse...There may be rogue cops out there, but do they really announce to their precinct captains that they can't be controlled? It's hard to watch a show that stars such an unlikable character. [12 Mar 2002, p.41]

ABC’s midseason replacement How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life) is dumb and crass. That would be fine if it were at all funny.

CBS' new island series Survivor is populated with rats...Most of them walk on two legs. [1 June 2000, p.47]

Somehow executive producer Greg Daniels (``The Simpsons,'' ``King of the Hill'') and his cast must win over new fans while not pissing off the old fans. [23 Mar 2005, p.42]

The Gates is ultimately just another literary mashup with the undead, like Jane Austen's "Pride & Prejudice" tweaked with zombies, only here it's a stifling John Cheever story with bloodsuckers.

Louie differs from his late, unlamented 2006 HBO show "Lucky Louie" in that he dials back the volume. Yet he manages to not only push but also assault the boundaries of what's acceptable for basic cable, even at this late hour.

It's a dull blend, a slow-moving mind-rot creeping on unsuspecting viewers.

The premise is nonsensical, the characters little more substantial than fog and the central season long mystery is less a whodunit and more a why-bother.

This show violates so many tenets of storytelling, it deserves to be tossed in the clink. Outlaw is about as entertaining as a legal brief on the case of Wall v. Paint Drying.

My Generation is based on a Swedish series, "On God's Highway." Dramatic storytelling seems to have veered off the road and crashed into a tree.

The humor is crude and risque and often at the expense of Indian culture. I could have lived without the defecation jokes. To be fair, the writers don't give America a pass.

From pariahs to parodies. What a quick ride. The party is almost over for Jersey Shore.

One problem with the show is intrinsic to its premise. Though mediation is valuable in the real world, it doesn't lead itself to interesting stories in a medium that chugs on conflict, victims and victors.

The ladies are so desperate to be noticed, they recycle bits from other shows.

This series won't last long enough for him to complete his education.

Let the drinking games commence.

The slight sitcom has all the heft of a powder puff.

You can take the spiked head out of Jersey but you can't stop his "Shore" ways.

[Smallville's Erica Durance, Stargate SG-1's Michael Shanks and The Vampire Diaries' Daniel Gillies] should be a winning cast, but the writing and plodding execution are worthy of a quick DNR order.

The unscripted answer to "Laverne & Shirley" will now be tamer than "Anne of Green Gables."

Perception is a head trip not worth the journey.

There are some adorable tots mugging hard on NBC's Guy with Kids. The adults muck it all up.

The true horror here is the utter lack of imagination.

Red Widow might leave you feeling blue over the waste of time and talent.

As The Voice made loud and clear, there's not enough talent to go around.

Why did executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer ("Remember the Titans") populate his CBS series with such revolting characters? With the exception of Marg Helgenberger's harried but compassionate investigator, this is a crew teeming with bullies and psychos. [6 Oct 2000, p.S32]

The Paul Reiser Show is stale and dated.

We all know the cliche about imitation serving as the sincerest form of flattery, but this dumb show takes sucking up to levels of criminal laziness.

Here’s the kind of firm even “Boston Legal’s” Denny Crane would have the sense to close down. And I don’t think I’ve ever sat through so many penis jokes in the 8 p.m. hour.

A tired, messy show that reflects its star, fashion PR and marketing maven Kelly Cutrone.

This sad sack of a show plays like an East Coast, economically challenged version of his HBO hit “Entourage.”

The show displays all the sophistication you might expect from a social media that limits its statements to 140 characters. Here's a tweet from me: This show is a piece of (bleep).

Unlike "The View," there were no topical references--the show could have been filmed five years ago for all its relevance--unless you count the moment Osbourne turned a vague discussion of divorce law reform into a rant against cyberbullying.

TBS has concocted a show once considered to be unimaginable: A college comedy so badly written, acted and executed, so deficit in any jokes or diversions that even a stoner wouldn't be able to enjoy it.

Shameless lives up to its title. What's left for the rest of the season? Cannibalism? Macy is a good sport about being dragged around the kitchen like dead weight.

It's strange that the same network that airs these two stellar comedies [Modern Family & The Middle] would chose to regress and put this dreck on the air.

The Exes is the kind of show you can dump without a second thought.

He sighs, "I got nothing left in me." Neither does this show.

Mitch just might be the stupidest attorney ever depicted on TV.

TV this dull should be outlawed.

Nobody here is as self-obsessed as the least Kardashian, which will come as a relief to the celebrity-jaded, but we all know where the real talent lies in this family, and he's not onscreen enough to justify this series.

Director Philip Kaufman's clumsy, bloated project--clocking in at a miserable two hours and 40 minutes--stars Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman in potentially career-mangling performances.

It wants you to believe that Sheen is playing the most sane, vulnerable man in the world, yet he still comes off like a creep.

The search for love has never seemed more like a lost cause.

The problem with Partners, as you'll discover if you watch the first two episodes, is that they already made that show years ago and it was called "Will & Grace."

To be fair, Last Resort does not insult ideology--it merely knocks your intelligence.

The party may be winding down, the taps are running dry, but stupidity lasts forever.

Calling this a train wreck makes the movie sound more fascinating than it is.

Kelley is known for cre­ating wonderfully mem­orable, sometimes deliriously neurotic characters. Judging from the writing here, it’s as if he’s been medicated into a stupor. Diagnosis: Waste of time.

This is not an easy show to watch, not because of its ambition, but because it’s just so pointlessly mysterious.

First, the dreck: The best thing that can be said about the unscripted series The Show With Vinny, starring “Jersey” castoff Vinny Guadagnino, is that the half-hour bumbles along like Sunday dinner with your most annoying relatives.