You can't go wrong with Smith ("That '70s Show") or Lenehan, pros with impeccable comic timing, which leaves relative newcomers Bornheimer and Hayes. Thumbs-up here, too. Worst Week may be the best new comedy on network TV this season.

[A] stylish Gothic thriller that almost gives away a little too much Sunday. Otherwise, thumbs up.

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

Tere's real promise in Parenthood. In time, we may all genuinely care whether Crosby and Sarah find themselves, or at least grow up.

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

A winner and best of all, fun.

Quinn radiates enough sincerity to make us keep reading this uneven book, just to see how it shapes up.

Far, far, far and away NBC's best new pilot of the season and one of the best new shows of the season, on any network -- commercial or cable.

Fans of "The Sopranos" looking for a new Sunday-night must-see may find it here - though perhaps not fans driven to fits by that HBO hit's ambiguous conclusion.

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

The Goode Family is a highly imaginative and often amusing variation on that one note.

What a hoot. What a ridiculous, soap-operatic cutup of a series. But if you can stop giggling long enough, as I managed to--quite a feat, let me tell you--Harper's Island is also hugely enjoyable.

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

Entourage is clarifying a moral message--drugs will kill you, terrible behavior is terrible, and real friends are forever. It feels like a reassuring final season.

The first three episodes totally nail it.

As a quirky cross between Reynolds' Gator McKlusky and John Cazale's Fredo Corleone, Whitford pretty much hijacks the show. He's fun to watch, even if the show will knock your IQ down a few points.

Carell's Scott may emerge as one of those characters viewers dearly love to hate, but the guess here is that he's too over the top - much more so than Gervais' character was - to be appreciated in doses this large. He'd be more effective as a secondary character - think Danny DeVito's immortally despicable Louie DePalma in "Taxi." [24 Mar 2005, p.B33]

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

Series star Treat Williams ("Hair," "Prince of the City") is such a fine actor, with so much natural gravity, that he can transcend all but the hokiest writing. And as the opener develops, the writing actually starts to meet him halfway. [16 Sept 2002, p.B18]

This show doesn't feel even remotely played out.

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

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.

Labine and Greer completely hijack the show, and almost threaten to turn Biggs (you'll remember him from "American Pie") and Chalke ("Scrubs." "Roseanne") into props. A well-made and skillfully executed sitcom. Oh--almost forgot--fun, too.

These stylish suits aren't empty, by any means. But we'll have to see if USA is truly willing to let its heroes' souls get emotionally naked.

Good actors can get away with glib, and Woods is one of the best, persuasive enough to have you spotting freshness in the familiar and wisdom in cliches.

You have plain old smashmouth elemental TV story devices--good guys, bad guys, evil corporations, a family unit, and a headlong rush toward the Truth, whatever that may be. Plus this special bonus: Intimations of Jack Bauer.

Not a lot new here, but Cheney gets a fair hearing--even though a tougher one is occasionally warranted.

de Cadenet's interesting. Her talk show is much less so.

If it wasn't a docucomedy, it would just be dull.

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.

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.

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.

Samantha Who? which is not nearly as cool a title, but still a sparkling comedy that treats its viewers as--gasp!--actual grown-ups.

Outrageous, eccentric, funny, campy--and too creepy for small kids.

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.

Future episodes aren't as snappy or scenic. But Shahi & Show deliver win-win, anyway.

Being Human echoes, move for move, the BBC America fave of the same name. Yet, Syfy simplifies the tone into young-adult novelhood, where there's lots of white space around really big print. Subsequent episodes improve as plots thicken.

The wit can get a little heavyhanded sometimes - yes, it's another series with voiceover narration (can anybody say "Sex and the City"?) - but its heart, and head, are in the right place.

Watch the first few minutes of "The Class" in its CBS sitcom debut tonight, and you may not believe me when I say this, but here goes. I think they might have something here.

Hardly a treasure, but a lively island of adventure.

The Housewives evolve. Yes, watch what happens, if only for the richer plot lines, smarter dialogue and more pressing matters of the day.

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.

Pleasurable, amusing, well conceived and written, though perhaps just a little shy on character development (New York excepted). Give this one time - these guys feel like they're worth getting to know, and the show as well.

It's a romp and a half.

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

A second-rate knockoff of what's not quite a first-rate fabrication itself.

Heights almost feels like atonement for the biggest hit in MTV history. The kids don't swear (much), esteem their elders, work at their dreams and have no obvious or debilitating vices--until they drink.

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.

"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.

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

You can see Neverland as sly philosophical discourse, or you can see it as fantastically produced adventure. Just make sure you see it.

While you're left to wonder why these four stars need a reality show, or why the contestants never truly made it in the first place, "The Voice" should remain a solid performer for NBC--which it so very badly needs.

Nice looking, but not nearly enough action.

There's just too much shtick and not enough personality, especially when the stars' previous hits found their funny in relatable human behavior.

A winner. And for the Hoffmans' sake--plus family and friends along for the ride--let's hope there is gold in that hard, cold ground.

It's daring, disconcerting and/or enlightening.

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

Kings is a worthy enterprise that will deeply puzzle millions of viewers.

This is good bunk, fun bunk, energetic bunk. Much better bunk than the last volume.

Old-fashioned and a bit placid, but Stults and Duncan save the day, and maybe the series.

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

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.

There's humor, there's heart, you'll laugh when you don't expect to.

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

Some amusing bits, but for every one of those, there are 10 misfires.

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.

Unforgettable was on no one's list as one of the "buzzier" fall pilots, but that doesn't mean it's not one of the better ones. It is.

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

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."

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.

Engaging docudrama with lots of interesting detail. Worth watching.

They honor the job without trivializing it, or turning it into melodramatic entertainment pap for the masses.

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

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

There's plenty of heart here--and some very sharp writing and acting, too.

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

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.

"Raines" is both thoroughly conventional and thoroughly unconventional; in fact, it often revels in its conventionality.

This one is stylish, smartly produced and has a very appealing cast.

NBC's new Bionic Woman remake is a desolate slab of ice where any resemblance to human beings - alive, dead or cyborgian--is purely coincidental. It's hard to imagine a bigger modernized mess being made

The pilot is so busy establishing its new world, performances are afterthought generic. But Defiance gets more distinctive, and dramatic, through its next two hour episodes.

Which isn't to say Duck Dynasty isn't entertaining. It's just more of the same.

Strong personalities evoke the hold of the old, the tug of the new, and that intersection's human fireworks.

The Whole Truth equals " Law & Order: The Next Generation." It's still just a little too overeager and needs to mature.

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

The cameos often are amusing, and so is Kudrow, but someone at Showtime evidently forgot to ask whether a one-joke webisode can or should be expanded into a one-joke TV series. This one feels like a strrrretch.

Sometimes, you're not looking for great TV. Sometimes, you're looking for par-tay! And dudes paid "to mess with the zombie culture," while also acing the case, surely fits the bill.

Sure, the plot's ridiculous, but the film's mostly fun, while the pleasure of watching Burstyn play a homicidal wacko is not to be denied anyone.

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.

Yes, indeed, a love letter this is, but 41 is better than rank puffery because it also takes the full measure of Bush.

You may hate yourself for laughing--just don't be too surprised if and when you do.

Sure, it's a glossy, well-produced infomercial filled with powerful live performances, but it feels designed to make us want to buy more Beyoncé stuff.

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

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

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.

Inexorably transfixing, whether you're taking names or taking notes.

This doesn't pretend to be a deep show, but it's a pleasant diversion with a good cast, and really good (read: expensive) production values.

Finally, the best new comedy of the 2005-06 TV season is here... What's that, you say? This is a drama and not a comedy? Oh, dear.

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.

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

Not so much scandalous as scandalously dull.

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.

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.

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.

If you can see the forest through the trees, it's good, wearable fashion that's the real "fashion star" on this show, and it gives viewers an unusual glimpse into the world of retail despite all the superfluous hoopla.

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

Monday Mornings is Kelleyesque in all the best and admittedly worst--melodramatic, manipulative, shocking--ways. But it's also intelligent, particularly well-written and acted, and above all interested in matters other than what's directly mounted on the screen before your eyes, most notably ethics, human nature and human fallibility.

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

Grimm has real promise if NBC has real patience.

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.

This version is a triumph.

Sad thing is, I'm a geek girl myself, who'd be happy to love this mad mix of technology, action and "humor" if it were, you know, actually funny more often than just cheaply offensive. Less pander, more wit, please.

The "Melissa & Joey" pilot is no great shakes. But Melissa and Joey could be.

Hoggers is more down-market than Beers' crab fishermen and ice road truckers.

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).

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.

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

Bob's Burgers might be meatier if it gave us some reason to watch these characters. The title isn't the only thing that feels generic.

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.

While critics like me count quibbles, kids of all ages should share my husband's assessment: "It's a superhero show. Superman flies. Give The Cape a little space."

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

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

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

Like many Lifetime productions, this one is designed to make you stand up and take action on a hot-button issue. Unlike many, it's got the dramatic chops to keep you on your feet applauding.

One thing you can say for USA: It knows what it's doing. It's got its shtick, and it's sticking to it.

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.

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."

This canned stew is further flavored with too-snappy comebacks, too-slick repartee and too-clever contrivances. Making it bearable are cast members who do somehow manage to seem like people next door.

A reasonably competent soap.

Surprise! Crusoe's good, and by "good" I mean competently produced and acted.

Lotsa fast banter and stylish direction will make some viewers dimly recall--as they are doubtlessly meant to--William Powell and Myrna Loy's late, great "Thin Man" movie series.

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

Thought I was going to hate "Total Blackout." Then couldn't help laughing out loud.

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.

The "quarterlife" series, too, offers an especially hopeful kind of exuberance, even a glowing warmth to the friendships, that shines brighter than previous Herskovitz-Zwick shows.

Call Girl is a dreary London day. A pass.

A quick summary makes it sound schlocky, but William & Catherine is pretty slick schlock.

The show's an enjoyable diversion.

A pretty nifty, if completely insane, suspense/conspiracy/ chase/road adventure.

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

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

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

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

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.

Despite the storylines' incessant emotional and psychological delvings, the result is an inert if not annoying muddle among unpleasantly profane people whose prospective salvation isn't worth wading toward.

My pregnant friends polish up the hand-me-downs, shop for the rest of their gear at Target and worry to death about how to make ends meet when it comes to child care. They know what to name their offspring. That's what makes this new Bravo show exploiting the rich all the more fascinating.

It's an odd concept, but it works pretty well.

Cannavale's Cupid is at least funny and charming. He's good here and so is Paulson. The weak link--the "B" story, like tonight's tepid one with the Postie, which was as appetizing as week-old cod.

"Drive" is less the sort of textured character study we've come to expect than an action-packed joy ride. That's not to say you won't wanna hop in. But it's hardly a journey you've gotta take.

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

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

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 target viewer wouldn't watch all this predictable--I mean, impulsive--bickering and button-pushing while thinking: I wonder why all the paintings and posters on the walls in the background are blurred out? And then think: Geez, why am I even wondering about that? The audience for Joan Knows Best? will be loving Joan's visits to three plastic surgeons Tuesday, not fretting.

Perception is both clever and ridiculous.

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

The filmmakers' assurance makes this miniseries play more like bang-up drama than fact-filled documentary. Yet their facts pass informative muster, and emotional validity, too.

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.

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

The women's friendship radiates authentic undertones, beneath all the gooed-up personal drivel, although it's way too convenient how they always show up simultaneously at the same crime scenes.

Robbins means business, calmly prodding family members--and not just the apparent aggressors--to truly comprehend where others are coming from. She calls people on their bull, eliciting not just tears from stress but tears of realization.

Far and away the best new pilot on NBC this season.

A thorough whitewashing.

What's missing here, besides laughs? Chemistry.

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.

It does well what standard sitcoms do.

"Help Me" is a Gobi Desert of laughs... There's a strong odor of desperation on-screen, as if the competent and seasoned actors here know they're in this for a short ride. Indeed, they are.

The formula's a little too familiar, the pilot a tad dull. But Michalka's a big talent and for that reason, Hellcats has potential.

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

It's all weirdly engrossing.

The filming is urgent! The dialogue is obvious! The actors get choked up! It's as if a film school class put together a thriller following all the rules precisely.

NCIS is going to succeed first and foremost because of Harmon. His character is more or less the same quietly confident, genial guy he played when he was Allison Janney's ill-fated love interest on "The West Wing." He's essentially playing himself, and he's very good at it. [23 Sept 2003, p.B02]

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

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.

Ultimately, viewers just have to work a lot harder to fathom John from Cincinnati than Tony from Jersey.

Greetings From Tucson tries the high-wire act of both avoiding and exploiting Mexican-American stereotypes, and falls flat on its back in the desert sand next to the tire swing and the El Camino. [20 Sept 2002]

There's nothing to relate to here, just to observe from afar, and only Tambor's as-always deft comic distraction gives us anything worth glancing at.

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.

In the world of reality shows, this well-produced series is better than most. Betwixt and between all the emotional upheavals and drama, Coffey, only slightly witchy, dishes out sound advice.

Lehman is good, most everything's OK, but nothing is especially fresh or compelling.

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.

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

Tonight's "Skating" debut glides onto the air in a weird sort of middle zone, not quite cheesy enough to skewer, yet too much a cheese-product to take seriously.

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

A sober, intelligent, placidly paced drama as only the Canadians can make.

Rule-breaking law enforcers! Wherever have we seen this before? But it sure works Friday, seasoned with devil-may-care brio from a cool cast.

[Rhimes] may still be up to her old tricks, but here they seem fresh and energetic. Best of all, she has a solid young cast that pulls them off well.

The show's core relationship is appealingly relaxed. It dares to suggest successful coupledom lies less in heated passion than in being able to dress down and screw up and know you're still loved.

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.

Families can watch this together nightly. The pace isn't exactly taxing. And it's summer.

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.

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.

Chicago Fire definitely has familiarity going for it and familiarity going against it as well.

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

The show seems to have no point, rendering it agony how hard the proceedings work at making one.

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

Pathos may make for a more positive reality TV experience than a parade of lying, backstabbing and physical torture. But the basic appeal remains pathetic. Perhaps in more ways than one.

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.

There's not a whiff of actual life here, no grounding character like "Arrested Development's" Jason Bateman . There's just frantic, false and tiresome.

Good show with fine cast, but it all still feels a little too familiar and old-fashioned.

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

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.

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.

At least "Men in Trees" doesn't tax your brain. Just your patience, taste and intelligence.

There's enough human drama here to keep us occupied without having the walls fall down, too.

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.

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.

There's certainly comedy to be found in these basic situations, but not in "Lucky Louie's" confounding approach or stilted presentation.

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