A sitcom doesn’t have to break new ground to be good, but it does have to make you feel that it isn’t just going through the motions. "Christine" satisfies on that score to some extent, but you just want more from it.

For what it is, “Million Dollar Listing” is a well-crafted series.

The lapping tide of gooeyness would be more tolerable if Stark’s empathy made him lose a big case, and if that loss got messy. “Shark,” though, wants to have it both ways: he keeps winning, but now for the right reasons.

Watching “The Nine” is like trying to do a crossword with only the Across clues. But it promises to reward our vigilance.

The notion that the Empire ran on pillow talk and poison--the Great Woman theory of history-was also at the heart of the BBC’s 1976 "I, Claudius," but "Rome," with its spitting catfights, is closer in spirit to "Dynasty."

While the ideas behind “The Riches” are often satisfyingly satirical, Izzard’s role—he plays Wayne Malloy, a husband and a father of three, eager to escape the marginal life that he and his family have been living—is stagy and overblown.

There’s no question that the creators of The Pacific set out to honor the marines’ experience; they haven’t exactly failed to do that, but neither have they succeeded in leading viewers to a deeper appreciation of this--then and now--faraway war.

There are many of them [good moments] in Parks and Recreation, in fact; virtually every scene in the first two episodes contains good bits, with quotable quotes, twists of language that viewers feel smart for getting, and visual gags. But the minutes don’t flow; they merely accrete, one bit on top of another.

In general, there's a pat, familiar quirkiness to The Big C that keeps you at a remove from it, and too many easy appeals to your emotions.... Still, with Linney at the heart of The Big C, there's reason to think that the series will improve.

It's a big production-the first episode alone cost nearly twenty million dollars-and it looks authentic in a way that, paradoxically, seems lifeless. You're constantly aware that you're watching a period piece, albeit one with some vivid scenes and interesting details.

The new shows are more concerned with hitting their marks and getting the sociology right than with character, but Pan Am has a bit of style to it, and a note of darkness, and the formula might just work.

Season 3--the full season was sent to reviewers--has indelible sequences, but it's a mixed bag.

It’s not that much fun to watch an actress who, except for the occasional times when she lets loose one of her charmingly loud second-soprano laughs, seems always to be asking more of us than she’s giving, but Secret Diary of a Call Girl does get better as it goes along, although it doesn’t greatly distinguish itself from most other shows you’ve seen about young single women in the big city

If we got to know any of the characters in Generation Kill, the show might be more interesting, or, at least, more memorable.

Over all, the show has a little something, but it doesn’t have outstanding curb appeal, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a foreclosure notice in the window sooner rather than later.

There's so much potential here it kills me--a deep female friendship, raw humor about class, and a show that puts young women's sexuality dead center, rather than using it as visual spice, as in some cable series about bad-boy antiheroes.

If there's a TV writers' version of Stockholm syndrome, Dexter is Exhibit A.

Roday doesn’t quite have the chops to back up his Carreyisms. Shawn is a first-draft version of Jason Lee’s title character in "My Name Is Earl"--a lovable goof, but with little ability to gain traction in your heart.

What's most puzzling about Californication is that much of the time it resembles a soft-porn film.... This kind of cheesiness is all about what the camera sees, rather than about the story and what the characters are feeling.

In Treatment, while offering viewers a seemingly intimate look at this process, doesn't capture the emotional mise en scène: the characters on the show have all too easy a time expressing themselves, and the element of suspense is mostly absent.

Oprah’s Big Give stands out as a weird, misbegotten creature that perhaps shouldn’t have been taken out in public.

The characterizations in The Beast show very little imagination; as for the plots, haven’t we seen enough shows in which agents reveal their sterling natures by freeing Eastern European sex slaves?

Mental, a new drama on Fox, starting May 26th, is solidly mediocre; it’s not good, it’s not terrible, and there’s no reason for it to exist.

We come away with a new understanding of the extent of the Kennedys' dysfunction but without a sense of what made them special or of how they harnessed their talents. But what you see in Wilkinson's eyes--they're black holes, devouring everyone in sight--almost makes up for what's missing from the writing.

Their take on human nature may develop, but right now it's cartoonish in the worst way and too reminiscent of similar shows.

When it comes to story, unfortunately, Luck is a drag.

There is not a single fresh moment in the three episodes that have run so far; it turns out you can be controversial without being the least bit interesting.

Almost a parody of itself.