Golden Boy’s half-bakedness--part totally competent TV show, part lazily executed one--permeates throughout.

After two hours of Red Widow, I can tell it’s more watered down than it should be, but not if it’s watered down to the point of uselessness. If it can get at, to any extent, the way being a lawbreaking, badass, antiheroine might be fundamentally, complicatedly different from being a lawbreaking, badass, antihero I’ll keep watching.

Her persona combines Whitney Cummings’ bawdiness and Mindy Kaling’s entitlement with a self-proclaimed slutty streak (“I am sluttier than your average bear,” she proclaims), a familiar combination that feels original only in flashes. Schumer is sharper than her material.

The results contain both fart jokes and erudition, but not so much heart. Family Tree is colder and flatter than Guest’s best work, missing its inspired kookery and high energy strangeness.

It's not that bad, which leads me to believe that it could actually be good, if it weren't so neutered and lovable.

When you watch this show, you can almost hear some big, dumb executive animal saying, "We want a single-camera comedy that's weird and dark and fun, you know, like 'Arrested Development,' except with a young, sexy cast!"

The six-hour film plays like a 9/11 version of "Syriana" or "Traffic," replete with ultra-close-ups and so much shaky, hand-held footage it can feel like being led around the world, half-drunk and half-blind.

Even as we're prompted to be horrified by Hewes, her unrepentant nastiness, when paired with her immense power, leaves us very little to hope for here.

Sadly, no matter how spunky and weird Eli Stone might be at times, at its heart it's Slick Yuppie Lawyer Makes Good, for the millionth time over.

While the show's portrayals of King Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey and Lady Anne Boleyn feel reasonably vivid, there's a flatness to them, as if it's enough to merely tell the story convincingly and make everyone look damn good in corsets and puffy sleeves along the way.

Basically, the whole thing is stylish and '70s-sexy but also shallow enough to feel like a less funny, hollowed-out combination of "The Wonder Years" and "Boogie Nights."

Entourage is officially treading water, and the truth is it was never a great show to begin with.

The Ex List tries to pull off an impossible balancing act: We're supposed to believe that Bella is at once pathetic and admirable, hapless and perkily resilient. As a result, this scrounging-single fable is an unrealistic, clumsy, cringe-inducing mess.

Unfortunately, Blair's bratty take on Kim is repetitive and not even mildly amusing, Shannon is wonderful at her role (as always) but doesn't have much of a character to work with, and the stories are neither real enough to be relatable nor outrageous enough to flesh out a true farce.

I'd like to fall for Castle, but ultimately there's not that much there to love.

Piven seems perfect for the role of Cupid: Sweet, manic and slightly slippery. Cannavale and Paulson, on the other hand, don't come close to having Piven's comic timing, and that's a serious impediment.

NYC Prep is the reality version of "Gossip Girl" for those who take "Gossip Girl" a little too seriously--and don't mind that real prep school kids are far less witty and fascinating than the scripted ones.

Not a bad start, until the show's editors get their sticky fingers into this pie, and then all we get is one clip after another of a big-boned lady weeping over her inability to find love, thanks to her size.

You'd have to have ice water flowing through your veins not to enjoy this elaborate P.R. experiment in spite of yourself.

If this were a show about creative passion, then maybe Ben and Cam would be a little more interesting than the glossy professional yuppies on every other channel, straining to make that promotion and bag that babe. Unfortunately, as Ben and Cam demonstrate, more often than not the desire to "make it" is exactly as vague and empty as those two words imply.

Everyone involved with this production obviously meant well--this TV movie doesn't have a cruel or ignorant moment--but good intentions aren't enough.

Camelot teeters on the edge of camp, but it doesn't have the nerve to pitch itself into the abyss and just be trashy.

It's an oxymoron: a show about identity theft with no personality.

It's not nearly as highbrow and well-constructed as it needs to be, and it's far too serious and plodding to be a zippy break from reality.

What's really disappointing about Magic City is that if it weren't so desperate to be "Mad Men" in Miami Beach or The Jewish Godfather it could be an energetic, escapist hour of television.

The show is ludicrous, nonsensical, dopey, and pretty fun--so, basically the perfect sort of TV show to be airing on Lifetime.

It's got law and lawlessness duking it out against a backdrop of grime, guts and gravelly voices, but this is all served up humorlessly and laden with self-seriousness.

The results are a captivating, riveting, rousing, condescending, smug, infuriating mixture, a potent potion that advertises itself as intelligence-enhancing but is actually just crazy-making.

SEAL Team Six, a shallow TV movie about the raid to kill Osama Bin Laden, stars a bevy of beefcakes in Navy SEAL costumes--and Barack Obama.

Because Do No Harm wants to be more than just some shlocky Jekyll and Hyde--remake it has made Ian a very bad man, and yet he is not nearly bad enough.

The show has got a ponderous B-movie quality, everything so serious and simultaneously so silly.

Phil Spector is missing dramatic tension. It’s staged as a movie but it’s constructed more like a play, with plenty of scenes of two people exchanging Mametian dialogue in claustrophobic spaces.

It’s moody and slow and ponderous, elegant as Mikkelsen’s perfectly coiffed hair, except in the winky moments when, say, Hannibal serves Will an egg scramble that must contain body parts and Will unknowingly finds it delicious.

As flat and robotic as the show may be, a teen "X-Files" meets "Red Eye" is likely to pull in high ratings.

Features vaguely uninteresting characters, flat scenarios and a less-than-intriguing alien/swamp thing.

The improvised dialogue is sometimes smart, but it often leads to scenes where the main characters repeat their intentions over and over again -- you know, like in a really bad improv class.

I just hate that spunky gal character who alternates between her plucky plans and occasional adorable breakdowns, where she screeches or giggles or collapses in a heap on the floor, and someone needs to give her a hug or a kick or a romp in the sack.

The second and third episodes mostly felt like a retread of the pilot, with the same alluring but dangerous heist to execute, the same planning session between key players, the same conflicted feelings and suspicions.

"The Sarah Silverman Program" has all of the charms of a joke with an audible fart as the punch line.

While "The Sopranos" and "Brotherhood" make it look easy, "The Black Donnellys" makes it excruciatingly clear just how difficult it is to tell a soulful story about criminals.

The overall feeling is, "How did Rob Corddry wander onto the set of a shitty sitcom? Quick, someone get him back to 'The Daily Show' before they replace him!"

This show could've worked.

A&E's The Andromeda Strain is just a very expensive, very cheesy retread.

The main problem here is that the show's producers aren't sure what the dogs and the people should really do together, so they have them put on dorky little skits that even dog people can't appreciate, or they make them participate in obedience challenges like "jump over this" or "sit here very quickly," which many dog lovers would regard with the disdain reserved for toddlers who blurt out random phrases in French.

If these dorky team-on-the-move scenes look like something out of "Charlie's Angels," the shiftless-druggie scenes in the show's premiere look like they were pulled straight from an "Afterschool Special" about the dangers of snorting heroin.

Desperate, self-involved losers who are aging badly? I can't think of anything I'd rather see on TV. But sweaty, half-dressed couples snorting drugs and mumbling "Wanna fuck?" at each other?

I’d like to say that this crappy show is sure to bomb, but my faith in the intelligence of the American people is hanging in the balance right now, and since there seems to be enough dumbassery afoot to cheer on almost any half-witted scheme, I don’t want to make any assumptions.

A show so strange and vile and stupid that I really wish I could strongly recommend it.

The new drama Crash struggles mightily to appear slick and sophisticated and special, but the whole elaborate mess is just as leaden and obvious as the Oscar-winning movie upon which it's based.

This spot-on parody of a procedural drama will have viewers rolling on the floor laughing in no time, from its wildly unrealistic plotlines to the self-serious, melodramatic dialogue that spews forth from the stars' mouths at every turn.

The whole show is so repetitive and plotless and gutless and beside the point, it's hardly worth your time.

In short, after watching the first four hours, I can tell you that the eighth season of 24 does not look good. You know how much I adore this stupid show, but please, don't waste your time.

While I can understand why Parriott and Co. might be tempted to simply swap out the high-pressure hospital setting with a high-pressure intergalactic setting, the stupidity of Defying Gravity really knows no bounds.

Suffice it to say that the destination of this elaborate six-hour allegory is meant to be far less important than the journey. And that would be fine, if this particular journey didn't feel quite so much like doing hard time.

At first glance, The Deep End looks more like plastic food: shiny, colorful and perfectly appetizing, yes, but ultimately unsatisfying.

They can barely speak, or formulate a cohesive thought. They can't see clearly. They plod forward at an excruciating pace, stumbling clumsily over each other to get closer to the camera. They are easily distracted by bright lights, and shiny things. But they are so hungry, so ravenous! And that makes them vicious. Yes, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills are just as terrifying as the others of their kind.

The source of the show's downfall is more basic: It rushes through everything, pulverizing potentially engaging characters and story until the whole production starts to feel like a long trailer for itself.

[A] mediocre, plastic, utterly false new comedy premiering on Fox tonight--a series that just happens to be built around an all-powerful alpha male jerkwad-type of character.

They want to be both fun and edifying and end up being neither, and style-wise, they feel too much like Wikipedia entries with actors. The series might have managed to overcome these problems (partly, at least) if it had a a strong point-of-view, however conflicted, toward what it's showing us. But it doesn't.

It's a straight down the line uninspired, dull, humorless soap opera that mimics the original without taking any of the interesting things from it.

When grenade launchers, automatic weapons and war games substitute for salsa and swing dancing, the results are less wholesome entertainment and more armed-forces propaganda.

It's far too mediocre to be truly provocative even if the premise is a carefully camouflaged bit of retrograde.

You can hate Lifetime movies, and still see that Liz and Dick is exactly what a Lifetime movie is supposed to be, instantly hootable, usually ludicrous, rarely dull.

Americans suffer, Americans chip in and throw Big Money at the problem, Big Money Fixes Everything, and then millions of Americans at home sob and wastefully plow through a forest of tissue paper while feeling way, way better about themselves than they have since, like, before that hurricane hit New Orleans.

There's an attempt at darkness here that the writers don't pull off; instead each negative turn of events just feels depressing.

There's something distinctly disappointing about taking such sly, dark subject matter and making it so clunky and obvious.

There doesn't seem to be a point to the madness here, and that gives this one the expected life span (and the charms) of a housefly.

My guess is that lots of people are going to rave about how deliciously dark and weird this drama is, but before you believe them, take a minute and imagine Minnie Driver with a fake Southern accent. Now imagine Eddie Izzard with an American accent that's so bad, it makes his voice sound almost computerized. Next, throw in some demonic rednecks straight out of "Deliverance." Are you getting hot yet?

This show needs a miracle even more than the damaged inhabitants of Imperial Beach do.

Yes, [the sex is] all very realistic, but not very hot, thanks to the fact that these are grouchy, humorless people whom we'd rather see hitting each other in the head with two-by-fours.

The story is weak and, based on their performances, the cast knows it.

Pretty, sensible teenage vampires who talk like depressed extras on "Hannah Montana"? Why, Diary? Why?

Not only is this one of the more melodramatic, sappy, empty pilots on the slate, but the ghosts she encounters are hopelessly sweet and sentimental.

Would more accurately be called "How to Get A Guy, Any Guy" or better yet, "How to Cast a Great, Big, Wide Net Like the Soulless, Whoring Sea Donkey That You Are."

The story lines are every bit as insufferable as the punch lines.

The Life & Times of Tim isn't even as well written as that show, and it's far more amateurish and deeply, alarmingly stupid to boot.

A disastrous two-and-a-half-hour Cliffs Notes on the passionate, dysfunctional love affair between Ernest Hemingway (Clive Owen) and his third wife, the war correspondent Martha Gellhorn (Nicole Kidman).

Unlike most new series, and certainly unlike every other series on FX, it is totally uninterested in originality.

Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior is so silly, cynical and inept that its overqualified cast can't even save it--though Whitaker and Schiff refuse to admit defeat.