For 881 reviews, this publication has graded:
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44% higher than the average critic
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4% same as the average critic
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52% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4.7 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average TV Show review score: 59
| Highest review score: |
Critic Score
100
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| Lowest review score: |
Critic Score
0
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 390 out of 390
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Mixed: 0 out of 390
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Negative: 0 out of 390
390
tv reviews
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 50
Mr. Stone brings a more stentorian absolutism, leaving no room for doubt or nuance.- Posted Nov 12, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 60
“Vanished” offers suspense and high-society melodrama. -
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Reviewed by
Caryn James 80
Each slight, breezy half-hour is fresh and funny.- Posted Apr 9, 2013
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 50
[Stars Earn Stripes] drenches a promising premise in a distracting amount of troop-thanking.- Posted Aug 13, 2012
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- Posted Mar 3, 2013
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 50
Flashpoint lingers when it ought to speed up. It is a show about crisis that refuses to make you anxious. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 60
Ms. Flockhart... is not convincing as a woman of conviction. And that is too bad, because “Brothers and Sisters” has wit and grace. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 60
The premiere episode is almost willfully strange and unlikable. But that doesn’t mean that the series is bad, just peculiar, a solemn mythologization — and mystification — of surfing as unearthly pleasure and life-sapping addiction. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 20
Five contestants face a potential employer in a ridiculously tarted-up competition format that results in a job offer for one of them.- Posted Feb 7, 2013
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 80
There’s an engrossing moodiness to Mr. Williamson’s latest venture, but one he conveys without annulling the pact he long ago made with himself never to let his cheekiness go undetected. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
This new suspense drama, about a small group of people who wake up as hostages in an empty, creepy hotel, has promise, but it also has familiar and ominous signs of a short life expectancy. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 60
The Captain has a great facade, but it’s filled with people who will make you keep checking the real estate listings. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 70
[A] low-key but charming NBC comedy.- Posted Apr 3, 2012
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Reviewed by
Anita Gates 70
It is very good at allowing viewers to feel superior. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 50
A serviceable, nonthreatening family comedy that embraces the illusion that time stopped when Chachi married Joanie.- Posted Oct 15, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
There isn’t enough Jack Nicholson in Eastwick, and that is one of the main reasons to avoid this ABC adaptation of the 1987 movie “The Witches of Eastwick." -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 60
The dialogue, timing and jokes have the madcap pace and anarchic spirit of "Scrubs," and it takes a while for Ms. Cox to recalibrate her Monica persona from "Friends." -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 50
It's well made and also at times unnecessarily cheesy.- Posted Mar 31, 2011
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
The new film lacks the glowing cinematography of Néstor Almendros, who was nominated for an Oscar for "The Blue Lagoon." But under the direction of Mikael Salomon and Jake Newsome, The Awakening offers occasional honest moments of humor and adolescent angst.- Posted Jun 15, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 60
The actors are appealing and well cast, but their characters are quite basic, borrowed shamelessly from Brat Pack movies of the mid-80's. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 50
The medical scenes are competent but forgettable, while the scenes of Charlie's peregrinations are sometimes interesting and funny but surprisingly infrequent.- Posted Jun 6, 2012
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 50
The show's jarring shift in tone suggests a touch of the film "Syriana," as well, all of which leaves us with a hard-to-digest influence soup. It's as if a novelist were telling you that she wrote while under the spell of both Salinger and Nancy Drew.- Posted Mar 30, 2011
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 50
Off the Map takes few chances with plot or characters.- Posted Jan 11, 2011
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 70
Whitney is funnier than "2 Broke Girls," probably because the humor seems more idiosyncratic.- Posted Sep 19, 2011
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 50
The snowcapped mountains, pine forests and shimmering lakes are majestic, the Palin children are adorable, and the series looks like a travelogue--wholesome, visually breathtaking and a little dull.- Posted Dec 9, 2010
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 50
Accidentally on Purpose, with its matching sets of friends for Billie and Zack, its bland jokes, its lack of any sort of topicality, its Jenna Elfman, feels as if it could have been on any time in the last two decades. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 60
Swingtown has ’70s mystique, but not much mystery. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 80
CW's Oh Sit!, a raucous competition show is a hilarious return to the childhood you never had--the fun, danger-filled, almost-anything-goes one.- Posted Aug 14, 2012
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Reviewed by
Virginia Heffernan 60
This first episode doesn’t offer enough payoff for those first scenes: far too much Hauser and running, and too little Boulet and talking. But the opening scenes give proof of intelligence, and the series might yet display that intelligence more effectively, and give Mr. Anderson room to play. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 30
The series is really good at doing exactly what you expect, which makes it surprisingly tedious for a show where lives are on the line almost nonstop.- Posted Oct 9, 2012
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 30
The expansion emphasizes the sameness of his writing and his performances, and makes the payoffs of the jokes feel small.- Posted Jan 3, 2012
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
It's not very good--hackneyed and medium funny at best. But as sitcom comfort food goes, it's not the worst either.- Posted Nov 28, 2011
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 30
A tepid knockoff of "Sex and the City." -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
The set was slightly different, and Mr. Leno spoke with his guests in matching armchairs, not across a desk, but the content and tone of the premiere looked and sounded like any ordinary “Tonight” show. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 60
It's the "Sabrina" story mixed with "Arthur," and it strains to make the tycoon's son endearingly weak and childish -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 40
Part of what makes Raising the Bar so loopy is its commitment to this peculiar politics of personal responsibility and to a sappy liberalism that means none of the accused represented by Jerry Kellerman (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and his compatriots in the public defender’s office are ever all that bad. They are just mentally ill, or poor and struggling, or innocent. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 50
Freakshow is kind of drab compared with “Immortalized,” especially for anyone who has ever lived within driving distance of Coney Island.- Posted Feb 13, 2013
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
The creators of “Jericho” deserve some credit for beginning where most thrillers end. But they rely too much on melancholy pop music to paper over weaknesses in the writing and characters. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
"Men in Trees" wants to be a "Sex and the Tundra" but is closer to "Northern Overexposure." -
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Reviewed by
Virginia Heffernan 20
Rarely has a reality show -- even "The Simple Life" -- had dialogue that seems both so scripted and so mundane. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
Red Widow has an interesting cast, over all, for a midseason replacement series. Unfortunately, the best performance in the premiere is given by Anson Mount as her husband. Enjoy it while you can.- Posted Mar 1, 2013
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Reviewed by
Virginia Heffernan 70
The comedy is nifty, light and kind, even as it tries to be real, slitting open the stand-up themes of marital sex, masturbation and dope smoking until it's dirty enough to convince you that you're not being condescended to, but smart enough not to be grim. That's a huge feat. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 30
In comedy there's a fine line between wacky and desperate. Animal Practice crosses it early and often.- Posted Sep 25, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 70
Mostly the series functions as an entertaining if pale sequel to its HBO prototype. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 60
The good side of the kabuki-like formalism of the Bruckheimer approach is that the story moves like a bullet toward the inevitable apprehension of the fugitive, flying past leaden dialogue and plot holes so quickly that if you enjoy the crime-drama formulas that are in play, you can enjoy the show. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 30
The overall concept is so tired and the execution, despite the overlay of gross-out humor, so hackneyed that we could just as well be watching something from Mr. Eisner’s early career as a chief executive. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 40
The series hardly tweaks the formula, though it does so just enough that the more generously inclined might claim that Love in the Wild is an effort at democratizing the reality dating show.- Posted Jun 28, 2011
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- Posted Jan 17, 2011
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 60
"Related" is enjoyable but odd: feminism with a baby-doll face. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
Handsomely shot and deliberately paced, it has a superficially cinematic quality, but it doesn't have the storytelling juice to keep you engaged in Mr. King's convoluted multi-ghost story.- Posted Dec 9, 2011
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
Sullivan & Son has fewer explosive laughs per episode than Mr. Jeong [Chang in "Community,"] provides per minute.- Posted Jul 18, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 60
The writing is a bit stilted and predictable, but the show is not unbearable--are some amusing supporting actors and the occasional engrossing medical crisis. As a character study, however, HawthoRNe is weighed down in the pursuit of worthIness. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 30
ABC Family means well but could not have done worse. Secret Life doesn’t take the fun out of teenage pregnancy, it takes the fun out of television. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 40
Mr. Hembrough is not engaged in the kind of hunting that makes for good television.- Posted Aug 15, 2012
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 30
Retired at 35 will send you to the liquor cabinet, hoping to kill a few memory cells. It starts with the writing, which is bland and cliched, even by old-school-sitcom standards.- Posted Jan 19, 2011
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 40
Nothing in the premiere episode ever gets as creative as that bit of casting.- Posted Nov 15, 2010
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 60
Happily Divorced is less a sitcom than a showcase for Ms. Drescher's delightful, if somewhat time-worn, brand of schtick.- Posted Jun 14, 2011
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 50
The problem is more likely to be the generic nature of Emily's misadventures, and the soap opera implausibility of the medical stories, which is extreme, even for the genre.- Posted Oct 15, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
Homeland Security USA is a powerful ego boost for insecure civil servants, but it doesn’t reveal much about the homeland’s actual security. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 30
Each episode has an interesting 10 minutes or so in which we see what it takes to be a real sports photographer or Nascar driver. But then we’re invited to choke down the notion that anyone who has taken a few pictures or driven a go-cart can leap immediately to the top of the profession.- Posted Apr 10, 2013
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 50
The occasional half-decent joke aside, the pilot episode of (the real) Cult is largely derivative, with a style and atmosphere reminiscent of better CW shows like “Supernatural” and “The Vampire Diaries,” and a mildly interesting, at best, metaphysical-mystery component that feels borrowed from “Lost.”- Posted Feb 19, 2013
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 80
The fact that it's neither embarrassing nor deeply offensive--once it gets rolling, the show is actually quite charming--is a credit to the cast and the writers. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
Through the 3 (of 13) episodes provided for review, there’s still a lot more suggestion than information, and plotting that’s probably meant to be cleverly elliptical--important characters who appear out of nowhere, story points that are made clear a few beats too late--is just confusing.- Posted Apr 18, 2013
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
While smart comedies have certainly been built on less, there is something so contrived about Nick's obstinacy that you feel as if you were watching a lesson in feminism that would be more sophisticated if it were rendered as children's puppet theater. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
Over all, though, Sunday night's episodes are neither here nor there, lacking the oddball singularity of the movie while not yet achieving the satirical bite that would make the TV show interesting.- Posted Jan 13, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 80
Its a clever and engaging reinterpretation by Bill Gallagher, who shaped the script to contemporary tastes and sensibilities--notably, a postmodern fatigue with ideology and big thoughts. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 50
Peter Sagal begins Constitution USA, his four-part exploration of the founding American document, with look-at-me gimmicks that are more annoying than enlightening, but the series grows more substantive as it goes along.- Posted May 9, 2013
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 50
All of that good early work by the cast explodes in a ball of predictability.- Posted Mar 11, 2013
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
In "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" the raunch is often funny, though, while in Unsupervised it's mostly off-putting; the show's concept and its tone seem to be at odds with each other.- Posted Jan 18, 2012
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 50
What we get is an unwieldy and mostly humdrum combination of mob tale and backstage musical.- Posted Sep 19, 2011
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 50
Mr. Dean is appealing as Nate and Mr. Sheridan is amusing as Dove, but the tone of the series is uneven. -
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- Posted Mar 9, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 70
It's an enjoyable, intriguing look at what can happen to a group of ordinary, cash-strapped people who wake up one day as multimillionaires. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 50
The premiere showcases seven different women, doctors and their patients, in various states of anger, insecurity and neediness. It’s like a Hogarth engraving of the seven stages of womanly despair, “A Surgeon’s Progress.” -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
If you don't have a taste for tears and cheers and group hugs, a lot of time in School Pride is actually spent watching paint dry. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 50
Current TV turns out to be less serious than one would have predicted, and in some sense 4th and Forever might have benefited from some of the aura of earnestness that used to surround Mr. Gore before he took to making uncannily great guest appearances on enterprises like "30 Rock."- Posted May 26, 2011
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Reviewed by
Virginia Heffernan 10
Like “Crash,” “The Black Donnellys” is more of a lecture than a drama. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 50
What is obvious to viewers after only a few minutes is not obvious to the supposedly crack investigators dispatched to untangle the conspiracy, whose Ludlumesque layers they fail to see. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 60
Remove the sex, sociopathology and possible filicide, and you will still be left with a quite inspiring home design show. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 30
The producers didn't have any difficulty recruiting a gaggle of vain, vulgar spendthrifts willing to hiss, preen and cry on cue for the camera.- Posted Aug 11, 2011
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 70
It's funnier than a similar new Fox sitcom, "Free Ride," about a college graduate who moves back in with his parents. Partly that is because "The Loop" has a faster pace and bolder writing. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 30
The result is a mini-series full of emoting that does not register emotionally, a tableau of great biblical moments that doesn’t convey why they’re great.- Posted Mar 1, 2013
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Reviewed by
Virginia Heffernan 40
Still, if it's not funny, why give "Crumbs" any attention at all? Because it's an unusual experiment: not only is the show set among a fraction of the American gentry that few would consider relatable, but it also exhibits more gravitas than any sitcom in television history. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 40
Life Is Wild, which is based on a BBC series, simply cannot be given the preapproved seal of inspection for adults, either. Why? Well, there are many reasons, but in no small part because its efforts at exposition are of the kind that would make even a young wildebeest scream: "Rewrite! Rewrite! Rewrite!" -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 70
The series is smart and engrossing, though not in a particularly novel way, and that is not a bad thing. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 20
Watching real people undertake these artificial relationships can be entertaining; watching really, really fake people do it is just dispiriting. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
Kell on Earth doesn’t demystify the fashion world so much as try to pump up the mystique. It’s a stretch at times, but it does explain who all those haughty people are who crowd the Breslin Bar. -
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Critic Score 40
A co-production with the Canadian network CTV that is a ponderous exercise in the paranormal. Yes, here the science fiction is intentional, but The Listener is plagued by the same gloomy lack of urgency that afflicts “Flashpoint.” -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
If you didn’t already know that Ms. Cho has been a great friend to gay men, she makes that point often enough here. Unfortunately she doesn’t make many others. -
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Reviewed by
Ned Martel 50
It may be too much a celebration of Rev Run's normalcy to be all that intriguing. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
Unhitched expends a wrestler’s energy aiming to offend and provoke, but no amount of outrageousness can mask its conformity. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 50
Anger Management is at heart a simple, old-fashioned sitcom, with raucous recorded laughter and predictable one-liners.- Posted Jun 27, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 60
Mostly, it is a case load borrowed from "L.A. Law" and "Boston Legal." But the two troubled lawyers are amusing. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 10
Reality TV doesn't get much cheaper or crasser than this, and just to clinch its rock-bottom status, the show fills out its picture of rural menace by momentarily citing the 2006 mass shooting at a Lancaster County Amish school.- Posted Dec 11, 2012
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 30
Based on its first two episodes, Lifetime's Client List makes even a dead fish like HBO's "Hung" look steamy.- Posted Apr 6, 2012
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Reviewed by
Virginia Heffernan 30
Let’s say it one more time: He’s charmless and unfunny. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 50
You see Mr. Bratt with his goatee and expressions of martyrdom, but you hear the voice of Nancy Reagan. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 30
The smart way to go would be to turn this mess into a savvy comedy, but that may be asking too much.- Posted Sep 22, 2011
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 60
It's a drama that takes the wretched New Jersey caricature created by trashy shows like "Jersey Shore" and uses it as a force for good, or at least for reasonably good courtroom tales.- Posted Sep 27, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 80
The mockumentary conceit has been done to death, especially in sitcoms inspired by "Arrested Development" and "The Office." But it's effective in this drama, lending the characters' monologues both poignancy and also a light layer of satire. -
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Reviewed by
Virginia Heffernan 10
Spike Feresten keeps emphasizing how bad and cheap and lame his new weekly show is on tonight’s debut... He’s right. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
The first episode of Mrs. Eastwood & Company has a loose, somewhat rambling quality, as if the producers were still feeling around for characters and story lines, and it goes through dull stretches because no one we see--including Dina --is quite vivid enough to hold our attention on her own.- Posted Jun 6, 2012
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
Broadly limned, Big Lake works neither as a satire--and it stops trying after the delivery of Josh's back story--nor as an adventure in surrealist comedy, and it is tough to watch the strain for eccentricity. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
Viewers are treated to the spectacle of teenagers who can freely roam New York unsupervised by parents or teachers, tethered, by their own volition, to the strict rules and unyielding cliches of a Bravo reality show. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 50
Suspect Behavior is not boring, but it is familiar.- Posted Feb 15, 2011
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 60
We pay close attention to Sit Down, Shut Up, an occasionally quite funny but largely anodyne animated comedy beginning Sunday on Fox, because it comes from the pen of Mitchell Hurwitz, creator of “Arrested Development." -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 70
The show, the first original drama series made for Starz, is hardly the most original depiction of Los Angeles, but Crash has a noirish appeal, and ambitions to tell a big story. -
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Reviewed by
Ned Martel 40
The problem with "Criminal Minds" is its many confusing maladies, applied to too many characters. As a result, the cast seems like a spilled trunk of broken toys, with which the audience - and perhaps the creators - may quickly become bored. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 30
With none of the flair or self-deprecating wit that have defined other British sci-fi imports ("Torchwood," "Primeval"), Outcasts strands a number of talented performers, including Mr. Bamber, Eric Mabius and Liam Cunningham, on a world of wooden dialogue and interplanetary cliches.- Posted Jun 16, 2011
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 40
The pilot is so packed with generic scenes of medical crises and mob muscle-flexing that it feels as if the creators went to a buffet of past series and desperately piled everything they could reach onto the mob doc's plate.- Posted Sep 17, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 70
Breakthrough fulfills the fantasy that a team of miracle workers--with limitless budgets and resources--can come through for a stranger with a dramatic rescue package. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
NBC's teasers for The Apprentice: Martha Stewart had hinted that she would make heads roll and grown men cry. But the premiere episode was a gauzy tribute to her life's work, an evening-wear version of frilly, fun-loving "Martha," Ms. Stewart's new daytime talk show. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 60
Hollander... has pared the medical drama down to its barest notions of life and death and sliced away the acronyms, arguably just when they needed some cutting. -
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Reviewed by
Anita Gates 40
Both actresses are charming, and the first episode has some smart dialogue, but it's sabotaged by a glut of physical comedy, most of which doesn't work. [19 Sept 2002]Posted Feb 24, 2013 -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 30
It's "3rd Rock From the Sun" without the wit or the understatement.- Posted Sep 25, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 30
The series is sentimental in a sleek way, and there are surface glints of humor in the script, but mostly, "Brian" is a blander, less distinctive version of "Thirtysomething." -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
“Inside the Mind of Mischa Barton” would have been a much better bet than The Beautiful Life. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 50
Predictable characters haven’t hurt the “CSI” crime shows, but this is Mr. Bruckheimer’s first hospital drama, and viewers accustomed to layered dramas like “ER” and “House” expect more. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 60
The class divide is ugly and pronounced, much more so than on “Nurse Jackie,” where Jackie’s best friend is a surgeon happiest in the proximity of $600 pumps. Quickly, Sonia’s aspirations are shown to be untenable. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
Here the basic setup is "The Beverly Hillbillies" without Jed.- Posted Nov 1, 2012
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Critic Score 30
At a time when recorded music needs all the commercial help and television exposure it can get, the Grammy Awards broadcast retreated too often into memories. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 70
This show, too, is funny, despite a cheesy game show premise. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
The "Real Housewives" formula is feeling stale. The louche locations all seem to blend into one another, and every kitchen is the same, with acres of space and double-wide Sub-Zero refrigerators that seem to hold enough food for an Olympic swim team.- Posted Feb 22, 2011
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Reviewed by
Virginia Heffernan 30
"Treasure Hunters" is too flimsy a pillar to help structure NBC's reality-television future. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
The show's main characters are all too familiar. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
It never grows quite suspenseful enough, and it rests on the rather un-sci-fi-ish idea that the future is a benign force, like a mentor uncle with something meaningful to teach us about our venality and callous disregard for the Earth. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
Lipstick Jungle is a wooden clog of a melodrama squeezed into a flimsy, satin and marabou mule. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 60
The question is not whether "3 Lbs" is familiar and predictable, but whether "3 Lbs" is entertaining. It is, and mostly because it is so familiar and predictable. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 30
The creators of Mental couldn’t take Gallagher any further up the mean-spirited scale, so instead they went too far in the other direction and ran smack into cliché. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 30
The Deep End is a pale imitation without smart writing, imaginative casting or even a clever conceit. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 30
The cues for tenderness and uplift are all over Live for the Moment: the choked-back tears, the crowds of applauding family and friends, the corny speeches, the constant reiterations (essential for this sort of reality show) of how amazing the whole experience has been. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 60
"Four Kings" is better than a lot of similar sitcoms, but it's not different enough to stand out in what NBC hopes will be a renaissance of must-see television. -
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Reviewed by
Virginia Heffernan 80
“Big Day” is marvelously cast, and the actors, especially Wendie Malick, manage, like the cast of “24,” to convey a sense of urgency that almost belongs on the stage. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
Conceptual fuzziness isn't the main problem. That would be the writing, a labored attempt to parody certain Manhattan and Malibu attitudes and speech patterns- Posted Oct 28, 2011
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
Zero Hour is entirely dispensable, its silliness matched by its comic-book solemnity.- Posted Feb 13, 2013
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 30
Offers a ho-hum monster and the kind of stock characters that we've seen too many times before. -
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Reviewed by
Ned Martel 30
The show admirably shakes up these lives and implores people to envision improvements, but much of these benefits could be accomplished without such a benefactor swooping into town. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 50
Immortalized is the better of the two ["Freakshow" being the other] because it revels in its own absurdity.- Posted Feb 13, 2013
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Reviewed by
Virginia Heffernan 0
Revolting.... Watch and you’ll lose your appetite for life. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
In almost every way, Moonlight demands that we question the grounds for its existence. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 30
Blue Mountain State, a bawdy comedy about a fictional college football powerhouse that had a sneak-peek showing on Monday, is dumb even by frat-boy standards. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
That's not to say that there aren't laughs in Strange Days; they're just not "Entourage"-level laughs (for those who enjoy Mr. Saget's hilarious appearances as himself on that HBO series).- Posted Dec 10, 2010
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Reviewed by
Virginia Heffernan 40
As a self-aware show, perhaps too self-aware, Nashville attends closely to the money-country nexus, mindful that it’s not your daddy’s, nor Robert Altman’s, "Nashville." -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
It’s an impressive cast and a perfectly good premise, but for some reason, Thursday’s pilot episode is not very funny. -
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Reviewed by
Anita Gates 50
It would be nice if Angela’s persona were truly distinctive, but, played by Ms. Spencer, she may turn out to be just another very pretty face. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
The series is better when it strays from Mr. David's format, but mostly it follows it too closely.- Posted Apr 13, 2011
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 60
Do No Harm is a resolutely lightweight entertainment whose silliness isn't necessarily a deal breaker--if you turn off the right parts of your brain, you might enjoy it.- Posted Jan 31, 2013
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 50
Some of the jokes are amusing, but the show is a traditional sitcom that looks slightly dated.- Posted Sep 10, 2012
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 30
This celebration of friendship feels so sour and joyless.- Posted Sep 24, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
Chemistry is supposed to be the binding element of “Standoff,” and the two leads, while appealing in their own right, seem neither well matched nor sufficiently mismatched. -
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Reviewed by
Virginia Heffernan 50
It’s pretty easy to loathe this stuff if you like your comedy more ragged, drug-addled and confrontational. But there’s an easygoing red-state pleasantness to it too, a celebration of timeless and consoling suburban inertia. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 30
Ms. Romijn's hourlong show tries to combine the arch satire of "Desperate Housewives" with the chick-lit romance of "Grey's Anatomy," and falls short of both. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 50
The comedy pivots on Hank’s painful adjustment to middle-class living, but that joke is undercut with syrupy life lessons about parental responsibility and quality time. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
All of this might be vaguely defensible if “Testees” were trying to satirize the abuses of Big Pharma, or the limited opportunities for dumb white men, or really if it were trying to satirize anything at all. But it just sits there, inert, like a patient on a gurney. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
The women here aren’t foils for male inferiority; they’re just dragging the boys down further with their alternately lazy, nutty or emasculating ways. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 50
Nothing in the first two episodes of The Pauly D Project is more than mildly diverting, but that's still more than can be said for the reboot of the candid-camera prank show "Punk'd."- Posted Mar 29, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 30
"Twins" is supposed to be a light-hearted comedy, but there is something ineffably sad about Ms. Griffith's struggle to cheat time, a real-life version of the HBO satire "The Comeback." -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
His new reality show, Pete Rose: Hits & Mrs., tests positive for tedium.- Posted Jan 11, 2013
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 60
The movie races so quickly through the milestones of his career... that some of the most powerful moments in his papacy are underplayed. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 30
It should be funnier, but aptly enough, the pilot fails by also clumsily trying too hard, pushing what should be lighthearted portraits of insecure, inadequate mothers into grotesque caricatures.- Posted Nov 29, 2011
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
An impatience with subtlety is one of the problems with the first episode of Outlaw--the plot points and the performances are overblown, too obvious and too cute. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
Kath & Kim should be funnier, and could yet be, but the pilot disappoints. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
There is a sense throughout that Mr. Engvall is betraying his core audience, and the whole blue-collar comedy ethos in particular, trading in one category of cliché for another. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 30
The pilot is not very funny or at all surprising. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 40
And so begin the one-night stands, screaming matches, freedom affirmations, back-seat seductions and enraged exits of this largely absurdist but not entirely useless almost-postracial soap.- Posted May 31, 2011
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
There is no good reason in the world to watch Date My Ex, and yet there is something vaguely redeeming in its economic chemistry. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 30
Mr. Kelley is a gifted television producer, and “The Wedding Bells” has funny moments, but this series is not a labor of love. It’s a labored effort to simulate romance. -
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Critic Score 40
The show, approximately the zillionth attempt to put Flash and his friends on the big or small screen, isn’t bad, particularly; it’s just not very, excuse me, flashy. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
When the pranks aren’t gross, they are just inane--or, worse, demeaning to journalists. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 60
Ms. Kreuk and Nina Lisandrello, as her police force partner, are unconvincing as detectives. But the pilot's hint of a connection between the beast's condition and the murder of Catherine's mother offers the promise of future depth.- Posted Oct 9, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 60
For all the predictable one-liners, pratfalls and canned laughter clotting the pilot, there are some funny riffs down the line. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 30
This type of show can overcome rote performances and filmmaking if its narrative is sufficiently brisk and surprising. Unfortunately, the conspiracy here is shadowy only in terms of the camerawork. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 70
It's... a lot of fun: "The O.C." for the Stanley H. Kaplan set. -
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Reviewed by
Virginia Heffernan 50
As with “Laguna Beach,” however, MTV seems to have deployed every camera at Viacom just following the cast members around town in case something exciting -- a cellphone call! - happens. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
13 Fear Is Real, a fizzled effort at scaremongering, reveals just how badly reality television can go astray when the casting fails to be creative. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 60
One of television’s rare examples of successful farce. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 30
If you've been on a sidewalk in the meatpacking district in Manhattan at 2 or 3 in the morning, though, you've probably seen something a lot like Brooklyn 11223: the stagger toward the cab, the yelling match across Ninth Avenue. It's pretty much the same performance.- Posted Mar 26, 2012
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Reviewed by
Virginia Heffernan 10
Few viewers will have the stomach to enjoy this. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 30
It's a dead bore, weighed down by bad writing and a plodding performance by Mr. Corbett, who is to film noir what saltpeter is to sexual attraction.- Posted Nov 29, 2011
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
There are some funny moments on "Hot Properties," but few surprises. It's a very conventional, even sedate sitcom about sex. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 40
If you intend to think that hard about this silly show, don't bother watching it. The interesting elements have little to do with the hater-versus-hated matchups, anyway.- Posted Sep 13, 2011
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
Viewers are supposed to invest in their camaraderie, but there isn't much chemistry or even joie de vivre in the group.- Posted Apr 7, 2011
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 30
The result is a show that looks like a beauty pageant crossed with a slave auction.- Posted Jun 6, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
They are your grandmother's Angels, throwbacks to an era when there was something contrary and cute about a woman with flowing hair and a lethal karate chop.- Posted Sep 21, 2011
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Reviewed by
Anita Gates 40
"Mayday" is a run-of-the-mill television movie, but it does make its point: a lot of people in positions of authority these days are very bad guys. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 30
Unfortunately, it also possesses the true Halmi signature: despite the fact that it’s packed like a sausage with banter and jokes both verbal and visual, it doesn’t contain a single genuinely funny moment. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 30
Most of the time it doesn’t trust its own premise; the mechanics at this body shop rarely do any real work, instead spending too much time on toilet humor and immigrant jokes. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 20
It is a male version of “The Golden Girls,” but with weaker writing, and older viewers are not saps. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 30
It marks a return to the 80's era of "Dallas," "Dynasty" and "Knots Landing," when the prime-time landscape was dotted with lurid, silly soap operas that provided the kind of catty catharsis that regular shows neglect. -
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Reviewed by
Neil Genzlinger 30
The stories are flat, and the repartee between Jane and her teammates isn’t zippy enough to amuse even the comic-book crowd. -
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Reviewed by
Ned Martel 30
Neither Ms. Hewitt nor her series are malevolent forces, and the producers can feel as good as they choose about a cloying job well done. -
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Reviewed by
Ginia Bellafante 30
Everything about Jezebel feels too broad. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 10
Nothing Mr. Schneider has done over the intervening years, however--not even licking his own crotch in "The Animal"--has been quite as degrading, for him or his audience, as Rob, his new autobiographical sitcom on CBS.- Posted Jan 11, 2012
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 70
Not all the jokes are funny, but the characters are winningly unlovable. -
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Reviewed by
Virginia Heffernan 20
The writing on "Love, Inc." is unsparkly and sometimes labored. -
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Reviewed by
Alessandra Stanley 40
It’s not a groundbreaking new series by any means, but it has some redeeming virtues. -
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale 40
It's not unwatchable--CBS being the last broadcast network that enforces a certain level of competence and coherence in its shows--but it's irrelevant, a wholly generic sitcom so divorced from its source material that you have to pinch yourself to remember it had anything to do with the Internet, or with the world after 1985. -
