[An] uneven cross between “The Office” and “30 Rock.”

Limitless may give you an immediate high, but side effects may include listlessness, dangerous plot holes and a sinking feeling you’ve wasted an hour of your life.

Sharp, slick and brimming with visual tricks, Fox’s Minority Report is a trippy sci-fi crime procedural.

While we don’t know the identity of Jane Doe yet, the pilot drops some hefty clues, ones that only touch the surface of what looks to be a compelling conspiracy thriller.

The maestro behind “Sons of Anarchy” returns to FX with this over-the-top gorefest that tries to outdo both “Game of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead” for spectacle.

No, Project Greenlight doesn’t promise art, but it does deliver drama.

The new Netflix drama is burdened with so much annoying voice-over narration, the series at times falls somewhere between an audiobook and one of the more grittier Investigation Discovery crime shows. This dramatization of the rise of Pablo Escobar into the most notorious and lethal drug kingpin of South America is nonetheless compelling, and the story moves briskly, making it a great bingeworthy treat.

My time spent in Angela's life was a wasted hour in my own so-called life. [24 Aug 1994, p.47]

Burns’ direction is choppy, except for his closing­ scenes, which are un­expectedly strong. He does know how to end an episode. If only he knew how to begin one.

Marienthal is an energetic young actor, perhaps he'll find something more worthy of his talents after this dismal sitcom's inevitable cancellation. [2 Oct 2000, p.033]

Stern, who starred in the "Home Alone" and "City Slickers" movies, isn't devoid of comic instincts. Perhaps that's why he seems to be going through the motions here with a barely concealed smirk.

[Blunt Talk] is dull, depressing, charm-free, puerile and pointless. You’ll have more fun slapping yourself in the head with a spoon for a half-hour.

Documentary Now! is so good, you’ll be forced to reassess Meyers, whose comedy writing is so crisp and correct, he should give up his late-night NBC show because nothing he does there will ever be as good or as funny.

Occasionally bogged down by hokey dialogue, the drama is ultimately redeemed by a veneer of hope and some wonderful performances, notably Jeffrey Tambor as Travis' cynical bookmaker father and Labine as his follicle-challenged best friend.

Fear resorts to the dumbest of jump scares and runs in circles. You’ll get impatient for a walker to come chomping by. You might be disappointed when one does. An action sequence that caps the extended premiere is choppy and amateurishly directed.

Hawaii's pacing, dashes of humor and casting make this one worthy of an "aloha" - but that's a tentative hello.

Engrossing.... Haggis, who directed all six hours, and Simon have walked this material before.

Where Ties unravels is in its other half, as it desperately tries to be a gritty police procedural.

[A] sweet yet raunchy comedy.

[Jane] Buckingham is likable and, in a genre better known for its bombastic Chris Harrisons, presents good tips and doesn’t make the show all about her.

[A] dreary show that has all the edge of a doughnut hole and comes slathered with an astonishing amount of sexual innuendo for a network sitcom.

The insanely intense action drama opens its final season tonight. Scenes of quiet only serve to bridge action sequences.

If you’ve seen one shark fall from the sky, you’ve seen them all. To its credit, in its last five minutes, Oh Hell No! amps up the craziness to a level that should have dominated the entire film.

Leary is perfectly cast as the middle-aged wastrel with a modicum of talent and an ego the size of the Trump Tower.... Much of the show can’t be quoted. Many of the jokes you can see coming at you from the Zakim Bridge. They’re still funny.

Gaffigan plays a tubby man-child version of himself, and in the classic TV marriage cliche (see “King of Queens,” “According to Jim”), he just happens to be married to an insanely hot woman (Ashley Williams, “How I Met Your Mother”) who is loving and supportive beyond rational means. But Gaffigan has ambition.

Impastor has a stronger­ point of view [than The Jim Gaffigan Show] but fewer laughs.

Holmes is obviously meant as a temptation for Ray, but the mismatch between her and star Liev Schreiber is not worth dwelling on. Ray Donovan remains a potent mix of pathos and dark comedy.

Spoils takes its murder mystery too seriously. While this isn’t as dour an affair as Ferrell and Wiig’s recent Lifetime debacle, “A Deadly Adoption,” a little bit more nuttiness would make this mini more a treat and not so much an endurance challenge.

There are a few scares here, but while the “Scream” films kept audiences jumping, Scream the TV series risks putting viewers to sleep.

Locked up in cliches, tedium and barely believable bipeds. ... As far as extinction events go, Zoo is lame and tame.

Mr. Robot is like a computer virus that will worm its way into your consciousness if you’re not careful.

By now, you’ve grasped Poldark is a soap, a four-letter word by PBS’ standards.

Even though it’s been a heady year since the first thrilling installment and the season runs but eight episodes, something feels undercooked about this production.

The Astronauts Wives Club orbits thisclose to camp--yet never plunges into a black hole of idiocy.

The most discouraging aspect of the film is the fact that we can never latch onto these characters in any warm, intimate or sympathetic way. They stand as ciphers in the larger steely drama. [10 Sept 1993, p.]

Squeezed into a blue spandex suit with plastic chiseled muscles, the towering Warburton has done the nearly impossible. He has created a character who is ridiculously outlandish yet more than a mere caricature. [8 Nov 2001, p.50]

Unfortunately, the pilot doesn't flesh out the premise, making the episode little more than an average "Outer Limits." With all the special-effects possibilities of a virtual realm, "Santiago City" looks like the set of "Combat" with a high-tech fence around it. [8 Oct 1999, p.S34]

Becoming Us suffers from poorly cut segments that might give you flashbacks to the ’90s seasons of MTV’s “Real World.”

Beggars and Choosers has moments of high laughter and inside-y insight. Ultimately, though, it's a downer that dwells more on the cliches than the truths. [17 June 1999, p.59]

Rabe is terrific, balancing drive and a mounting dread, and it’s a pleasure to see the actress commanding a lead role. The first three episodes build the mystery at a respectable clip.

Young viewers disappointed at ABC's soggy sitcom version of the movie "Clueless" will find in Sabrina an appealingly fresh, funny show that delivers plenty of laughs. [27 Sept 1996, p.42]

Aquarius’ problem is that it doesn’t want to tell a single story from the Summer of Love, it wants to tell every story from that summer, so you get heavy-­handed displays of institutional sexism and racism, drug use, the rise of black activism, the generation gap, the Vietnam War and some marriage melodrama to boot.

Kidman works hard here, but she is sabotaged by a common script.

Come for the mystery, stay for the performances.

Push is a David Lynchian view of good and evil, avarice and honor. But it's also a game show. [16 Sept 2002, p.32]

Things are about to get a lot worse on Penny Dreadful, and for viewers, that is a very good thing indeed.

This series looks like a sad refuge for actors down on their luck. [4 Jan 2001, p.40]

After three episodes, my head is bumping against my joy ceiling--with Happyish.

The pilot is a rough go, winging from one angel to the next, necessary perhaps to set the premise but a slog. Nobody from the cast makes much of an impression.

Some story points, annoyingly, are dropped between the April 18 and April 25 episodes.... Even with a terrific supporting cast, Maslany is this show.

With that ticking clock in mind, Benioff and Weiss are improvising with confidence and a keen eye on character. You can see stories being streamlined.

Scripter Peter Straughan masterfully hits almost all the right notes in this fictionalized account of Cromwell.... The stage actor doesn’t convey the cunning with which Mantel imbues her protagonist. At times his lawyer seems a bit thick. At the close of next week, however, Cromwell--and Rylance--find their footing.

Red Road’s depiction of mental illness is one of the most compelling on any scripted series, and Nicholson continues to amaze.

It’s not the end of an era. It’s the end of a good, occasionally great show that overstayed its welcome.

We’ve spent so much time on mundane love affairs, the nature of the resistance remains an enigma. The Dovekeepers spins history until everyone seems a bit dizzy.

The sitcom starts with one of the best introductions to a group of losers. By the end of the third episode Fox provided for review, I was yawning and daydreaming about buying nail fungus remover.

There are a number of bad wigs and beards on display here, but much of the cast surmounts the costuming problems. The pace and the depth of the story might have been helped by extending this film into a two-night event.

More a cotton candy bouquet than a documentary, It’s Me, Hilary: The Man Who Drew Eloise introduces you to a man who has made millions of people happy--and would like nothing more than a chance to do it again.

iZombie is superbly cast and displays wit and surprises you don’t often find in the comics-to-TV genre.

One Big Happy is light and forgettable.

The Royals wouldn’t be watchable at all except for Queen Helena, played to the hilt by Elizabeth Hurley.

The cast mines genuine heartache in the mysterious.

American Crime’s direction is uncertain, but it looks to be one of the more uncomfortable, engrossing rides any commercial broadcast series has taken. Put away the phone and sit yourself down. You’ll want to see where this goes.

Tim Kring (“Heroes”) and Gideon Raff (“Homeland”) teamed to create this 10-episode miniseries, and while they’re smart enough to acknowledge their debt to “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” they aren’t able to match their source material.

Arquette is a cool presence onscreen and brings understated conviction to a character whose powers­ of observation border on superhuman.

Anyone hoping for a “Desperate Housewives” vibe (ABC’s last big Sunday hit) will be disappointed. This story unfolds as if it were told by someone overdosing on Ambien.

How far can Frank accommodate her when his own power base is splintering? That will be the most tantalizing plot to follow this season.

For The Odd Couple to work, you have to believe there are moments when these roommates want to throttle each other. This version presents a mild bromance. Nice for them, not so much for us.

A momentary lapse could lead to weeks of thought-provoking drama. The Slap echoes.

The destination to this journey doesn’t sound all that compelling, but Better boasts a caliber of actors other shows can only dream about.

The first three episodes are essentially capers involving spy chasing spy as angst-ridden Russians try to defect, the CIA tries to get to them and the SVR sics the O’Connors on everyone.

Fresh Off the Boat is the funniest, most charming show of the season.

While these newsies may have outsized personalities, everyone shares a belief in getting the story right and serving the community.

Set aside the stunt casting worthy of a CW series and the detour into Lifetime territory. History’s Sons of Liberty, a three-night, six-hour scripted miniseries, crafts a compelling look at the men and the skirmishes that ignited the American Revolution.

The climax is predictable, but the epilogue is not anything you’d find on a CBS procedural and suggests how good this show and Wilson could be.

Yes, this reality cooking show is like those that have come before it, but--at least in this episode--it stands out for what it doesn’t have. There’s no yelling and there’s no long bleeps to cover up cursing.

Average acting and troubled storytelling can be forgiven in a film about music if the music is transcendent. But Lifetime couldn’t secure the rights to any Brown or Houston hits. So we get actors lip-syncing to imitators. Often the lip-syncing isn’t even synched.

It’s a sporadically funny opening to an inconsistently comical season. A couple of episodes are slapstick hits--such as when the gang enlists Dee to spy on a Chinese fish factory. Others are just creepy. But it’s a mix that has fueled the sitcom’s success for nearly a decade.

The show has acting and comedic talents.... The only problem? Too many people won’t “get” it. For those who do, however, it will be love at first sight.

Season four is definitely a turning point for these characters, as we watch them reach for some semblance of adulthood, but this newfound maturity is shaky at best.

With the suspenseful Eye Candy, we have a pretty good show, especially for teens who get a thrill out of being creeped out.

The show is polished. The acting is good, and so is the cinematography. But at its core, this is really just a nighttime soap. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Mozart in the Jungle, which was adapted from Blair Tindall’s memoir of the same name, is surprisingly good, whether you’re into classical music or not. In fact, it’s almost as good as something you might find on HBO, which is what Amazon needs if it wants to succeed in the online television business.

The direction, at times, has a jerky feel. The dialogue is riddled with cliches.... But just when the whole miniseries, which Syfy is clearly hoping will become a regular series, is starting to feel mundane, there’s a last-minute twist that will demand your attention. It has the potential to make the series fascinating and much more than it originally seems.

The Librarians wears its cheesiness on its sleeve like a gratuitous elbow patch, which it also wears on its sleeve. It knows exactly how imitative and low-budget it is, and it doesn’t care if you know

Peter Pan Live! wasn’t interesting enough to hate watch.

Worst Christmas Ever seems to be under the impression that if it continually lamp-shades its own awfulness--the inane plot, the atrocious acting and production values, even that it is a Lifetime movie--that it will somehow make up for it. But that’s not how math works.

The series is fun and frothy but also often poignant.

Alfre Woodard isn’t given a lot to do as President Constance Payton in the premiere, but, unlike Heigl, she does have the gravitas for the role, and the show would be wise to use her more.

The latest comic book adaptation to hit TV, NBC’s Constantine is a nifty spookfest with dark humor and some genuine chills.

The 75-minute “super-sized” premiere might leave you feeling a bit bloated, but Top Chef is still a satisfying treat.

Wilson might be playing Penny with a better apartment, but she’s always a delight. Marino makes for a great sparring partner, and Williams has been off our screens far too long.

A dramedy about an unplanned pregnancy? CW has nerve--and the creativity to carry it off.

Not every question--or every character’s fate--is settled in the premiere, but fans of the show will not be disappointed.

Creator Byron Balasco’s sense of pacing seems off, as if he’s trying to figure out the direction as he goes along. The dialogue, too, runs in laps. If I had to listen to Grillo bark, “Relax!” one more time, I might punch my own TV. But with actors such as Lauria and Jonas driving the drama, Kingdom may yet rise.

You don’t have to be a comic book fan to enjoy The Flash, but if you are one, there are so many Easter eggs in the pilot--especially the one at the closing moment--that you just might go into nerdgasms. The Flash isn’t stopping for anyone.

Those who long for a replacement for “How I Met Your Mother” (back when that show was good) might find a good match here.

From Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Anne Heche comes this mostly numb comedy about a judge with a messy personal life.