Mark Burnett's newest plunge into the reality waters--somewhat predictable, with all the requisite reality bells and whistles (lots of dark blue mood lighting, dramatic music, quick-cut editing)--is mildly entertaining in that summer TV kind of way.

In tonight's premiere of "Bones," for example, super-sleuth Temperance concludes from the young victim's bones that she was probably a tennis player -- a nifty conclusion, but one that has no bearing on the case. It's a factoid that leads nowhere, which is kind of where "Bones" goes in its premiere episode.

Gravity has an intriguing premise and its pacing--the action cuts back-and-forth between the present and five years in the past--heightens the drama and foreboding.

Absent from this show are the ridiculous clothes that look like they belong on clowns and strippers. In their place are serious, wearable clothes that are, for the most part, so beautiful, so well-tailored and so, yes, sellable, that you'll want to buy them right up.

It remains to be seen if Underemployed will have time to spread its dramatic wings and shake off its ham-fisted preachiness--but it's off to a promising, if predictable, start.

It’s just that we’ve seen most of this before, and despite its creative pedigree and a solid cast--fronted by the always reliable Ving Rhames and Alfred Molina--there’s not enough to set Monday Mornings apart from “ER,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Private Practice,” et al.

Problem is in 1600 Penn they are shooting for "Animal House" in the White House but too often end up with nobody home.

Season 2 is more of less than we've come to expect.

Not that it's not a nice show, but it is precisely the kind of production for which the word "corny" was probably coined.

Funny, but not for the faint of heart.

Taken from a British series (although there is enough cribbing off American shows to make it seem all too familiar), this less-than-compelling knock-off follows Hood, who like House makes house calls--or in this case, crime calls.

If you’re an entrepreneur or just a dreamer, Crowd Rules may be just what you’ve been dreaming of.

The premiere, which was written by and stars "Friends'" Matthew Perry, has a premise that's full of possibility but a delivery that never arrives.

The whole thing's about as enjoyable as getting stuck in a stalled subway car full of mimes.

Bobulova is delightful to watch, playing the younger Coco as winsome, stubborn, independent and gifted. MacLaine, seen always with a cigarette between two fingers, has less screen time, but she commands every minute in which she appears.

It's a nasty piece of work filled with underage sex, vulgar, hateful kids and references to young girls that are flat-out ugly and disrespectful.

Get past the first hour and you've got a helluva good tale.

Combat Hospital has the look, feel and pacing of an old "M*A*S*H" episode--minus the humor and preachiness--and the soapy elements of fellow ABC hospital drama "Grey's Anatomy" (a smarmy British doctor, nervous newbies and the no-nonsense unit chief--with the heart of gold, of course). But these aren't necessarily drawbacks. This is an episodic TV drama, after all.

It's a good kid show, but frankly, as an adult I'll lose interest faster than it took these kids to make gourmet biscuits and grits.

Not only an important series, but a darned good, action-packed one.

This isn't ground-breaking TV, but if you're looking for a few good laughs and a lot of action without the commitment of marriage, Common Law the way to go.

Yes, "1 vs 100" is fun, but in reality, it's just a new take on an old, old game.

It is trashy fun as Spartacus, who is not really that interested in overthrowing oppressive Roman rule right now as he is in getting his sexed-up wife back, fights his way up gladiator rankings and out.

The Newlyweds premiere show is pretty engaging--especially without the fake fights and forced drama.

There is a point to this mess, but what it is, I can't say.

Women -- especially young mothers juggling responsibilities at home and the office — will find much with which to identify in the story of Annabeth.

It is no small feat to pull off the trick of interweaving so many characters and storylines, but the producers of "Six Degrees"... have accomplished it with admirable smoothness for a series that is just getting under way.

The chemistry between Winchester and Chirisa is great and very believeable, which goes to the acting ability of both men. It's not easy to make relationships seem real in this out-there fantasy.

Yes, it is all kind of dopey and has that "been there/ done that" feel. But Fillion is so right for the part and carries the show so well that he makes the show more fun than it deserves for an otherwise by-the-book procedural.

It seems to have been boiled down to its simplest ingredients.

Sure, Haven is fun. But I get the feeling that I'm suffering from the same attack of "been there/done that" as the lithe and lovely agent.

Not so happily, "Happy Town," is even more clichéd -- like "Scream."... [But] after you sit through a few episodes, it does get better, and the first-rate cast is a pleasure to watch.

The action is fast and sometimes even compelling, if not entirely believable - or even a little believable.

If "Runaway" is a harbinger of things to come, it, er, harbinges very well indeed!

A new syndicated series that is like the illegitimate love child of "Lord of the Rings" and a weekend role player.

These pros deserve better than bad jokes and swinging doors.

"Huff" is one of the best dramas on TV and easily the best one airing currently on pay cable.

You will hate the real-life outcome, but will love the movie. This is flat-out the best cast ever assembled for a true-crime TV movie.

It's a good thing reality TV has nothing to do with real life.

If you've never had an in terested suitor impose the Big Gesture on you, then ABC's revival of the 1990s dramedy Cupid is so not up your alley that you may as well live on Mt. Olympus. And that just happens to be where Cupid (Bobby Cannavale) comes from in this sweet, not-horrible show.

All in all, brainless fun.

The biggest question you'll be left with after tonight's premiere is a big, fat "why?"

The ridiculously expensive wardrobes, the fabulous hair and makeup, plus a high school with not a single fatty is well, yes, the stuff of teen fantasy. And that is exactly what Pretty Little Liars is: a glamorous, spooky, adolescent fantasy.

Added to these uncomfortable, setup situations are some others that simply defy explanation.

The ["quirky-genius" cop] genre is getting a bit moldy around the edges--and Perception doesn't add much to the tired mix.

The Firm is a modern, old-fashioned lawyer show--and that's a good thing.

The Beast is weighted down by a concept that was already tired when Moses was a teenager -wizened, jaded rogue cop teaches rookie the ways of the streets and blah, blah, blah. But Swayze brings to the role, as Rourke did in "The Wrestler," the kind of seriousness that only real-life suffering can impart.

[Final Witness is] a very good true-crime show. But that voice-from-beyond narrator is just so very wrong.

This "women's" show is such an embarrassing mess, it makes me ashamed to be a woman.

Think "Kitchen Nightmares" for dysfunctional relatives with the relationship experts coming in and making things work better in two minutes.

The only fear engendered by this series is the fear that the NBC programming department has been possessed by Satan.

While tonight's premiere episode is good, the show really sprouts wings and flies in episode two.

As in other TV serials of this type, the plot thickens long before it ever starts to thin.

We won't be able to avoid the realization that "Sex" as we knew it was a lot more fun than it is as Darren Star, who persists in seeing all New York as "Central Park West," knows it. [5 June 1998, p.113]

The best part of this show is the acting, which is generally excellent - particularly that of Hugh Dillon as Ed Lane, the conscience-riddled sharpshooter. Too bad the writing isn't as on-target as Lane's high-powered automatic.

Once "Brothers & Sisters" gets started, it works, and it works well.

As profane as "Deadwood" and as profound as "The Sopranos," the series strikes every right chord.

There's something secretly skeevy about self-made, self- promoting millionaires being given an hour-long, personal infomercial for doing what should be done in private--giving money to charity.

It’s just a big billboard spotted with interesting advice tidbits and, of course, tears.

These killers are more fun than a cemetery full of psycho zombie killers on Halloween.

The characters are likeable enough so that you might even grow to care about them--and the show--in this arid writers' strike environment.

If you are a dog person, have I got a show for you. It's like dog camp but done as a reality show, Greatest American Dog.

This show is so much fun that I couldn't stop watching it. It's "Dancing with The Stars" with the possibility of dangerous leg-breaking falls. What could be bad?

The miniseries--starring Greg Kinnear as JFK, Barry Pepper as Bobby, Katie Holmes as Jacqueline and Tom Wilkinson as Joseph Sr.--is without a doubt one of the best, most riveting, historically accurate dramas about a time and place in American history that has ever been done for TV.

I might be insane, but I enjoyed every silly minute.

A show so unusual in its format and plot that it will rival both "Lost" and "24" in creativity and "The O.C." in its character development.

Who knew real estate could be so riveting?

To love the series, it helps to be exactly Spike TV's target market - a young guy who, when he can't be out drinking beer and throwing up with his friends, loves nothing more than to sit in front of a giant-screen TV doing all of the above.

While the show is interesting and well-acted, ultimately, it lacks shock and awe.

Problem is both series [2 Broke Girls and Whitney] are hit-you-over-the-head until you laugh or else.

If "Survivor" and "Gene Simmons Family Jewels" had a love child, it would be called "Sarah Palin's Alaska.

Suspend all disbelief, pretend the really, really offensive laugh track doesn't exist, disregard the giant slabs of ham offered up by Jensen and Parham, and enjoy the chemistry between Elfman and Foster.

Swingtown could have been great. Instead it's a hit-you-over-the-head production--with product placement and wardrobe so obvious it begs us to scream, "That's so authentic!"--best forgotten.

After a few minutes, it becomes clear that this is yet another formulaic cop drama off the "Lethal Weapon" template.

Wolf is not about to break any new ground here. He's just creating the kind of TV that people watch.

Like "Sex and the City" with its clothes on.

What I like about this show as opposed to the other earlier versions is that it's not simply one male or female picking from a lineup of the desperate like a slave auction. Here, the 19 insanely good-looking, mentally unstable, scantily clad, all-white (by the way) losers compete against one another.

The acting is quite good, despite the fact that everyone is the same age, not particularly interesting, or even odd, and are all startlingly good-looking. The writing is good, if you can get past some cheesy dialogue.

Think "The Apprentice" meets "Extreme Home Makeover" and you've got the heartwarming Oprah's Big Give. All shows together equal more Sunday-night tears than a feelgood Lifetime movie marathon.

Jay returned with that smart and smartass mix of talent and controversy that separates the pros from the bores.

The writing here isn't very snappy, Steve and Emmy are one-dimensional cutouts and Russell, the former "Felicity" star, looks uncomfortable playing it for laughs.

The second episode is 30 percent better than the first. Maybe by episode six, it will actually be watchable.

A really good, really weird show.

Fallon seemed a bit nervous in his monologue (who wouldn't be?), but quickly found his rhythm, firing off some snappy one-liners.

Problem with Freak Show is once you meet the performers, and they have the obligatory let’s-get-acquainted party (what is this, “The Real Housewolves of Venice Beach?”), you’re already over the shock.

Daniel Henney is the new handsomest man on TV and it's a pleasure to watch him walk the halls in scrubs. But even he can't make me believe what Three Rivers is selling. For that, I'd need a brain transplant.

Maddening and exciting.

The writing is so good, so clean and understated that it's a pleasure to behold.

It's not a bad scenario for a serialized drama, but be forewarned: The apocalyptic story unfolding on "Jericho" is, by nature, exceedingly gloomy, reviving memories of the Cold War and also serving as a reminder of the tense times in which we live now.

[A] very silly mid-season drama.

One reason it all works is the quality behind the concept.

It's a format that just doesn't mesh with a laughtrack -- and when there's nothing particularly funny about what we're watching, it smacks of desperation.

A flat-out good show.

The truly terrible, Lock 'N Load, a six-parter debuting tonight on Showtime, is possibly the worst-taste reality series since "The Littlest Groom"--and it took some serious doing on the part of Showtime to manage that.

There are elements on night one that actually are pretty darned scary. Too bad there's a night two.

The ensemble cast here is flat and one-dimensional--somewhat surprising, since John Masius ("St. Elsewhere") is one of the show's executive producers.

To use some Southie Vernacular, I would just book it ("run as fast as you can") from this wicked ("very") mediocre show which appears destined for the TV barrel ("trashcan").

The show, like the old "90210" and "The O.C.," looks to be--from its premiere, at any rate--a top-flight series about a group of high school students, most of whom I liked immediately.

On the up side, some of the one-liners are quite funny. On the downside, a lot of the show just doesn't work no matter how hard Mohr works it.

Clearly they've studied both movies and can mimic the moves, but they just don't hear the music.

If you love Fran Drescher, and just the sound of her voice sends you into peals of laughter, happily settle in to enjoy her divorce. If, however, her voice makes your inner dog howl, run like your rear is on fire.

Gummer's a good actress in a mediocre sitcom; one that skirts the line between grown-up series and one that will appeal to The CW's young-girl demographic.

While some of the "finds" the security officers uncover at border crossings tonight at the Los Angeles International Airport, at the Blaine, Wash./Canada border, at the US/Mexican border and while patrolling the desert outside Tucson, are interesting, most are not.

Nothing surprised me enough, while watching 90210, to blurt out, "Oh my God!" but hey, I'm not as easily surprised as a 15-year-old from Kansas.

This series-in-a-series is an innovative and creative way to make TV, which I love. What would I have loved even more? A scripted series about a scary, charismatic cult leader.

This new series [is] often very good and just as often very dull.

The animated version of Napoleon Dynamite is almost as funny as a cartoon version as it was in the flesh.

The real-life Village locale (in Nambia) is fascinating and McKellen is great, as always--but Caviezel and the rest just grimace a lot and make you want to get-the-hell outta town.

And if there's one thing I love in a movie, it's a sadistic sheriff. I also love wild dogs, feral cats and hungry vultures, and this movie has them all.

The acting isn't great, some of the hundreds of subplots aren't bad, but this ain't "Mad Men" and Cibrian and Heard are no Jon Hamm and January Jones despite their desperate attempt to be.

Portions of "Free Ride" show promise, due mainly to the show's star -- Dean -- whose character remains grounded and sane, against all odds.

The show, yet another "reality" show starring a bunch of rich people who supposedly spend all their time together, partying, fake arguing and creating drama out of nothing, is so dull, it makes "Russian Dolls" look exciting.

"Windfall" is not the greatest show to hit the summer circuit, but not the worst either.

While "Studio 60" is/was an annoying, insidery and smug series about the inside doings of the annoyingly smug cast of a "Saturday Night Live-ish" show, "Donnellys" is the annoying, insidery and smug series about the doings of the Donnelly brothers, low-level thugs in Hell's Kitchen in New York City.

Despite the fact that it revolves around standard-issue teens with troubled, rich parents, it pushes the formula a few steps . . . make that several steps farther.

Huge egos, big tempers, blood feuds and bling.

The jokes are dismally unpleasant and vaguely depressing.

Much of this is tediously drawn out, with crazy fly-overs between Biblical Chapters that may make you think it’s “Survivor: Holy Lands,” which, of course, it is.... Things really pick up when Jesus shows up.

Once again, we have the same personalities you've seen endless times before on cooking and competition shows.

Since the show stars all these great TV actors... the show sustains some laughs that it wouldn't otherwise be able to wring out of bad material.

Yes, there's a heavy hand in the schmaltz department, what with the dead mother and the wounded beasts and all (Hey! It's Africa after all!) but it's not so heavy that it's annoyingly cloying. At least it worked for me.

Some of the 28-year-olds on "Conviction" appeal to me. Others do not.

Not only the funniest new show this season, but the strangest one since "Get A Life."

It's all dopey--and as believable as a telepathic paramedic, a supermodel detective and a partner who doesn't notice he's riding around with a psychic.

What I like about this series is that it is anti-slick and anti-pretty.

The best part of the show is watching Cho's standup act. Other than that, I really don't care to watch someone pick out clothes and talk to her "Glam Squad."

The Rev is a lot like the rest of us. He matured and became dull.

Some of it is quite funny and so are the situations in which these four characters find themselves.

For once--despite all the editing that went into making Kim the breakaway bride look like the slighted one--they will be exposed as the phony kreeps they are. And Humphries? He ends up looking like the dumbest schmo to ever appear on reality TV--and that's saying a lot!

The laughs can carry the show, so they seriously don't need the canned laughter and traditional TV sitcom sets. It keeps it all too safe. But so far? Not so bad.

A show with a promising premise that could be a winner.

If you want exploitation, The Houstons: On Our Own sinks to a new level when the whole family-including elderly matriarch Cissy Houston-visits Whitney's grave site for the first time.

They should call it "When Amish Go Bad." I'm talking about the insanely addictive new show, Amish Mafia, the most bizarre reality series, well, ever.

This brings up the writing, which is strictly discount--and so are the plots, which don't tell us enough in the victims he saves.

When Vinny is one-on-one with his guests, as he says at the opening, he isn’t Jay Leno. But he is pretty funny.

The improvisations are sometimes so forced that I swear you can actually see the actors thinking about what to say next.

As a talk-show host... he's a rank amateur who exhibits no discernible skills.

Clint's wife and daughters star in E!'s newest and really horrible reality bore, Mrs. Eastwood & Company.

Oh, no--can it really be an other sitcom about a grown son moving back home after failing big time in the big city? Yes. But not, "oh, no."

OK, not every TV procedural is dumb, but Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior? Dumb is too smart a word.

They tried for the tried and true, hoping they'd get "The Sopranos" meets "Grey's Anatomy" while filling the hole "House" left in the schedule. And, like a camel, they ended up with an animal made by committee.

A mushy, messy, medical melodrama that's pretty much identical to a dozen other doctor dramas you've seen many times before.

[The] characters are so charmless, it's as if they were created on purpose to actually repel viewership - a TV first.

It keeps the proud tradition alive with dialogue so bad, it'll make you laugh out loud; acting so shallow, it could make a model look brainy; and actors so unbelievable, they can't even get the runway stomp right.

The format is so complicated and the contestants so unappealing that the show misses the mark.

All three actresses deserve better dialogue than they are given. But the clothes? They speak volumes.

This show could use some brain surgery itself.

This is not to say that vapid and ruthless can't work on TV (think "Nip/Tuck"). But vapid and ruthless has to be redeemed by ridiculous and funny.

You don't have to be nuts to love Mental, which is a kind of schizophrenic "House"--but you do have to be willing to suspend disbelief to the point of, well, insanity.

The show is by turns sweet and funny.

"Kings" is a self-conscious attempt to reel in the 20- to 30-something male demographic that TV is so desperate to capture. But, unfortunately, it isn't edgy, especially funny or believable.

The person who steals every scene is Brett Butler as the sister-in-law.

Normally, this should be as much fun as pulling out your own fingernails, but the cast for the most part makes it tolerable and fun.

I doubt I will ever watch a single episode of "Courting Alex" beyond this first one.

This mommy-answer to "The View" is a somewhat dumbed-down version of that show except here the panel--Julie Chen, Sharon Osbourne, Holly Robinson Peete, Leah Remini, Sara Gilbert and Marissa Jaret Winokur--discuss traditional "women's topics," i.e. kids, cooking and such.

Think the (hint! hint!) demon love child of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” meets “National Treasure.” The series seems inspired by all of them, mostly successfully.

This could have been a really good show. Instead, "Fly Girls" ends up just an OK flight to fantasy land.

A wall-to-wall weepfest.

There's nothing fresh or original, and certainly no reason to watch this show, unless you're a fan of this ilk of staged "reality" (see "The Kardashians").

"E-Ring" is sometimes kind of silly, sometimes tightly drawn, and sometimes it's fun.

Interesting take on the biblical story, but if you prefer your Moses as a nicer guy, may I suggest you skip tonight and tomorrow night's new epic and wait for the real Moses, Charlton Heston

"Underbelly" has got some good, (no - I won't say "belly") laughs, but you've got to wonder what happens if the show's a success.

Moonlight, unfortunately, doesn't trust its audience and so falls to exposition via a fake talk-show interview at the beginning, and then throughout with dialogue dully delivered by Internet investigative reporter Beth Turner (Sophia Myles).

With jokes so bad, they make Carrot Top look funny, it's a tough haul for all--all around.

One of the silliest shows to rear its dopey head this year.

Awkward and so creepy it's positively nauseating. And that's without them ever even showing the sex.

"'Til Death's" Garrett, the man who made Jackie Gleason look like a disgusting manic-depressive jerk in that awful CBS movie, seems to be bringing the same unpleasant character to his first leading-man role in a sitcom.

Hank, is one of the worst new (or old) comedies of this or many other seasons.

Carpoolers tanks like the Titanic.

Kretschmann... delivers one of the finest performances seen on TV this year.

The only fun comes from Pressly and Finneran, who are so likeable they almost overcome the overwrought action.

In place of dialogue, we get one-liners.

The dialog is crisply Pileggi, natch, but it's the flavor of South Beach, the most exciting American city in the 1990's (before the tourists realized that it was safe to go back in the water) that's captured precisely.

NBC's idiotic drama, Outlaw, is so bad it should be listed as a Class A felony.

NBC's unfunny adaptation of the wildly funny Australian sitcom, is arguably the worst idea for an import from the Land Down Under since Vegemite.

I apologize to all the Flash Gordon fans around the world. I know I had nothing to do with this series , but it's so horrible I somehow feel responsible - just by watching it.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you'd need rocks in your head to really love Game Show In My Head.

As soapy, sappy, Christmas adaptations go, this one's pretty good - until it totally falls apart at the end with the most preposterous finale imaginable.

Tinsley turns out to be the least interesting of her horrible crew. She pales in horribleness next to her friends, J.P. Calderon, an accused purse lifter who throws a glass at a woman and his sworn enemy, rich girl Jules Kirby.

It's a horrifyingly embarrassing low-rent dating show in which a 40-year-old woman must choose one young cheeseball from among a batch of 20 spoiled curds.

It's Paris Hilton's "The Simple Life" but with a real simpleton at the helm.

This silly excuse for a show is made up of a great-looking ensemble in the most blatant teen-sexuality show in broadcast history.

There is no moral or morals to this insanity. GTL is DOA

It's a show which focuses on a bunch of pretty, white young entrepreneurs with a sense of entitlement that is actually so revolting--especially in this day of mourning and sadness--that you might want to throw your TV set through a window.

This guy has a great personality. Building a likable sitcom around him ought to be a no-brainer. So why haven't they done it?

Terrific cast, some fun, but overall the writing is often as dead as Walter.

CBS' new social-experiment-on-a-budget-series, is one of those occasionally interesting summer replacement series that proves once more that "real" people will do anything to get on TV.

Hr stupidity's a put-on (for her sake, I hope so), as is this entire show, whose concept is so convoluted that Fox had to devise a clumsy new term--"a comedy/reality hybrid"--to describe it.

Both soaps are perfectly awful on almost every level, which makes them nothing, if not, well, hilariously perfect soap scum.

A line-for-line ripoff of Bravo's not-terribly successful "The Real Housewives of Orange County."

Matt produces two products in surplus amounts: cheese and corn. And I'm not talking by-products of animal husbandry.

How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways: You are degrading, debasing, desperate, depressing, dull, and dopey...You are a show so ill-conceived and so demeaning to women that you make Howard Stern look like a feminist. [25 Mar 2002, p.75]

After watching a bunch of real-life gigolo slimeballs have full-on sex with pathetic women who pay them, I needed to shower between episodes.

Like this movie, most of the passengers in "Mayday" are dead on arrival.

Unlike "Baywatch," it's not as bad as it sounds -- or as good -- depending on your opinion of beach dramas built largely around boobs and biceps.

If you last through 20 minutes of "Twenty Good Years," NBC's new sit-no-com, you are either a saint, a madman or in a tragic and irreversible coma.

The audition segments are mostly hilarious.

Even rousing viewers to stay awake would be a big accomplishment.

Rob is a slapstick shtick-fest that strains to be "Modern Family," but isn't even close.

While the cast is quite good, and they even manage to rip a laugh or two out of the material, it's not enough to sustain a whole show.

Everyone involved in creating this show should be forced to immediately seek other forms of employment. This business is not - repeat, not - for you.

Enter Bravo's new attempt at catching the "Bachelor Pad" phenomenon with Most Eligible Dallas, one of the most uneventful reality shows ever mounted.

A loser it is. Shatner's quips in real life are better and more outrageous than anything Halpern's father or Halpern himself (who exec-produces this bomb) ever came up with. Hearing Shatner deliver them just points that out.

The writing is so bad that, I promise, you will sit there mouth agape.

There are so many things in this movie that are just so damned juicy that it is sure is more fun to watch than the exploits of today's orchestrated star pairings.

A ridiculous, cloying, condescending, wrong-headed reality show.

It is overlong, contrived and utterly out of place on UPN. It plays like something left over that the network needs to discard before going out of business.

A bad morph-job of "Seinfeld" and "Friends" but without the simplicity of the first, the chemistry of the second or the brilliance, timing, and writing of either.