There are few surprises here and even fewer reasons to tune in.

V is stuck in the past of a 25-year-old show. It needs to shed that skin.

Just be grateful to be back in the neighborhood. [26 Sep 2005]

In true "Grey's" fashion, each newbie is challenged with a case that dredges up the personal issues that brought them to this isolated spot, where, according to Ben, it's like practicing medicine in 1952 in a Third World country

If you dwell too much on the plot, you’ll fall into a chasm of disbelief.... Flowers doesn’t look like a Lifetime film, and that’s a compliment. The production moves at a brisk pace, and unlike the children’s predicament, never feels claustrophobic.

Usually “24” descends into silliness in its final third act, and by that time, it has built up a reservoir of goodwill so viewers are determined to finish the day. Not so much with this one.

It's a bad omen when the show repeats one of its catastrophes next week, just amped to a grislier level. I was bored.

Sarah Palin's Alaska turns out to be a tepid travelogue of the former governor's home state's tourist attractions interspersed with homespun homilies and family downtime.

Executive producer Sofia Vergara, better known as Gloria on ABC’s “Modern Family,” and series creator Hannah Shakespeare (“The Raven”) have a lot of ideas, but there isn’t a single surprise in the batch.

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.

The workplace segments are rife with sexual innuendo that don’t creep so much as just haul off and whack you in the face. ... There are some funny bits.

Ellis is a good choice as the season’s biggest anti-hero, deftly playing sarcasm as well as the occasional pathos. As it gets rolling, Lucifer poses some theology-class-worthy questions about the nature of redemption, damnation and duty.

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

The dress rehearsal was rough in many spots. The camera work at times was manic, punctuated by the stray stagehand ducking for cover. It also suffered from a huge distraction--the audience. ... Hudgens brought mad energy to her part. Valentina as the doomed Angel was affecting and downright kicky on “Today 4 U.” Brandon Victor Dixon, the scene-stealer from last year’s “Jesus Christ Superstar,” didn’t find his footing until late in the show. Others in the cast seemed drawn from a community theater production.

The Exes is the kind of show you can dump without a second thought.

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

The courtroom scenes are among the least convincing scenes in the series.

Hale is pretty but bland. The voice-overs range from precious to Carrie Bradshaw impersonations.

He sighs, "I got nothing left in me." Neither does this show.

Arnett isn't stretching himself here, but he's still funny as a man who can't comprehend why he can't buy the love of his life. Russell brings a fervor to the role of a woman who has yet to come across a tree she wouldn't want to hug.

D'Elia sparks well off Cummings, but this show demonstrates her true talents lie offscreen.

Blood and Oil, harkens back to the best elements of “Dallas” and “Dynasty.”

He seemed nervous in a rapid-fire monologue that took shots at Dick Cheney, Alan Greenspan and Tiger Woods.

It’s a series without interesting characters, story or a modicum of tension.

NBC's Animal Practice is a lot like ABC's "Grey's Anatomy," except it's furrier and it's a lot less funny.

Red Widow might leave you feeling blue over the waste of time and talent.

Suvari and Bartels are competent, but don’t have a lot to do in the early episodes. The scripts hit every beat you might expect. “American Woman” makes “Sex and the City” look timeless.

Not every skit landed, but more did than any on any 90-minute “Saturday Night Live.” I’m still not sure if Maya and Marty have comedic chemistry--maybe these crazy kids just need to get to know each other better--but I’m definitely going to be tuning in this summer to find out.

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.

Tremors could go somewhere. It's an appealing setup, with some resonance in Old West-style independence and eco-tourism. [27 Mar 2003, p.61]

The show’s humor is more often graceless and crass.

While much of the teen supporting cast, including Kyanna Simone Simpson as best pal Yvonne and Sarah Mezzanotte as mean girl Marnie, are just right, Rose is flat through most of her scenes. The scares, at least in the opening episodes, rise from jump cuts or dreams. Ten episodes just seems too long for any heart to suffer this story.

Gore-hounds will find a couple of visual shots fascinating, but there’s little here for anyone to justify the hour investment.

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

The conspiracy element is easily the weakest part of the show and seems present only to drum up some modicum of suspense. The tech babble, however, is a delightful callback to “Star Trek: The Next Generation.

How you view it will depend on what you consider the proper care of collectibles and the corruption of a minor.

Anyone really thirsty for laughs will probably come up dry.

Bates, who remains a recurring guest on the network's "The Office," brings heart and intelligence to a role that is not nearly so well-defined on the page, proof that casting can elevate any vehicle.

TV Land tries to build on its surprise sitcom hit "Hot in Cleveland" with Retired at 35, a spectacularly unfunny show that reflects a parent's worst nightmare: A grown child moves home for no good reason and shows no sign of budging.

While the pace of the series definitely picks up in the second night, Bag of Bones doesn't pull off the scares of King's previous works such as Misery" or "The Shining" nor does it have the poignancy of his "The Shawshank Redemption."

A&E’s Wahlburgers is a thick heaping of Boston baked silliness starring two of Hollywood’s biggest stars and their beloved mom.

Troubled spirits: Mixology is drowning in them. Save yourself.

ABC’s midseason replacement How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life) is dumb and crass. That would be fine if it were at all funny.

Throws off a lot of sparks but it never really ignites. [9 March 2002]

Living Biblically is made in such a way that it won’t offend most anyone. It also won’t make many laugh. That’s splitting the difference in all the wrong ways. The show is exhausting.

The show moves briskly but not well. Kazinsky is good and tries to continue the cranky character Hall so memorably creates, but the writing wants to turn him into Captain America.

Two nights might have worked better for this series, but if noises at night make you jump, "Stephen King's Rose Red" will give you a decent dose of the heebie-jeebies. [27 Jan 2002]

Looks more like a tired old episode of "Wagon Train." [1 Jan 1998]

As the Chosen One, Egan is blond and bland. Dale and Head do well playing against type. As the Big Bad of the piece, Gabriel appears for perhaps 40 seconds of the 90-minute premiere and is still the most interesting character here.

Sit through TNT’s The Hero and “72 Hours” and REELZ’s “Race to the Scene” back-to-back, you realize how much the genre lives on the tired bone marrow of “Survivor” and "The Amazing Race."

The rapid-fire editing suggests the producers are people who find MTV’s pace too slow. But Better is devilishly clever about dropping teasers about its destinations to get you as excited as its travelers about the journey. This is a Travel Channel spectacular with 10 times the budget and 100 times the star power.

Oh, if only television critics could be like Simon Cowell on "American Idol." I could declare Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital positively dreadful, and viewers would never have to see it again. [29 Feb 2004]

There are some lovely shots of South Boston. Like everything else here, they've been staged.

Kevin Smith's animated "Clerks" is pure looniness with a crunchy layer of sweetness at its heart. The stars of the original 1994 indie film are all here, including Smith as Silent Bob. The animation is crisp and the facial expressions alone can be hysterical. [31 May 2000]

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.

Chase reminds me of "Trauma," NBC's attempt at a Monday drama last year, although the shows couldn't be more dissimilar (the latter was about first responders). They both seem to be placeholders in the prime-time schedule until the network can scrounge up something better.

Nightflyers, like YouTube Premium’s “Origin,” features a wholly impractical spaceship design, one that is expansive and minimalist, with long corridors and plenty of convenient places for something to hide. What starts intriguingly turns sillier the deeper you go.

In Happily Divorced, TV Land, the cable channel for baby boomers, finally may have found the perfect companion to its smash "Hot in Cleveland."

It’s bloody, grim, as overtly sexual as a commercial broadcast network can be, occasionally engrossing and only tangentially related to any serious inquiry into Christianity.

I wanted to check out the moment Dorothy Gale was waterboarded.

Some of Knightfall’s CGI action, at least in the cut the network offered to critics, is ambitious but unconvincing. When the show settles the swordplay to push plot around, Knightfall rises to far-fetched.

Finally you get the sense that Meryl Streep's daughter is coming into her own as an actress and even a lead. But Emily needs a script doc, stat.

In this eight-episode, hourlong show, instead of Lauren Conrad, we get Katie, who is about as interesting as a McDonald’s salad.

[Host John Cena is] smart and he’s funny when he goes off-script. He gives American Grit its shot at glory.

So many flashbacks for a murder mystery that is not remotely compelling.

The search for love has never seemed more like a lost cause.

With “Family Guy’s” Seth MacFarlane serving as an executive producer, you know what you are in for--rude and crude jokes.... What’s unexpected is how much Bordertown resembles “All in the Family.”

The men are neanderthals, the women are the sitcom cliche peacemakers.

TBS has concocted a show once considered to be unimaginable: A college comedy so badly written, acted and executed, so deficit in any jokes or diversions that even a stoner wouldn't be able to enjoy it.

Feed the Beast manages to be both overheated and undercooked. Stock up on antacid.

Ransom needs some stirring. Ex-cop Zara Hallam (Nazneen Contractor, “Heroes Reborn”) rounds out the team, and she gets little to do in this hour, a crime one can only hope will be rectified in future episodes.

This is not an easy show to watch, not because of its ambition, but because it’s just so pointlessly mysterious.

The show flexes its political correctness so hard, it forgets the most important part of TV drama is showing, not telling. That changes, for a few moments next week, when Ashley and Kristen are arrested and suffer far different ordeals from a booking officer. It’s a welcome rarity, and proof Ball can craft compelling drama, when he chooses to. Most of the characters on Here and Now self-medicate. You might feel the same urge after spending some time with this fractured family.

Cross brings to this six-episode season all the intensity of “Luther” with some deeper questions about personal responsibility in the face of overwhelming disaster.

There’s comparatively little tension, action or dialogue in Mother, but there sure is a lot of girl-on-girl writhing.

Wilson, who writes and serves as co-­executive producer, brings a sense of innocence to the sometimes ribald shenanigans.

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.

Say what you want about WB's late teen soap "Dawson's Creek," but even the worst episode was infinitely better than the network's dreadful One Tree Hill. [23 Sept 2003, p.46]

Idris Elba is a star. The least his TV show can do is reflect that.

Despite all of TLC's crafty maneuvering, this is a family that likes to laugh with each other. The rest doesn't seem to matter.

The alleged comedy follows this blended family's attempts to get along. The laugh track works harder than anyone here.

It's disappointing this animated series is so tame.

APB never settles its own version of its existential dilemma: man or machine? It argues for both. But as this uninspiring drama proves, sometimes when you split the difference, you end up with nothing.

The humor is crude and risque and often at the expense of Indian culture. I could have lived without the defecation jokes. To be fair, the writers don't give America a pass.

Russian Dolls reinforces every negative stereotype about Russian women.

NBC, together with Academy Award-winning producer Brian Grazer ("A Beautiful Mind"), tries to duplicate the success of AMC's "Mad Men" but cribs the wrong details with a woefully untalented cast, mixed feminist messages and a melodrama that is at times laugh-out-loud funny.

Their escapist capers make for pretty but mindless TV. [5 Oct 2003, p.47]

Shahs of Sunset, which plays like a cross between "Jersey Shore" with an older cast and "The Real Housewives of Oblivion."

Sit through TNT’s “The Hero” and 72 Hours and REELZ’s “Race to the Scene” back-to-back, you realize how much the genre lives on the tired bone marrow of “Survivor” and "The Amazing Race."

For anyone engaged in psychotherapy, Gypsy presents a nightmare, but its lazy execution is not worth the time commitment.

If you like your comedy slathered in crude, this sitcom is catnip. Everyone else will wonder if CBS stopped making shows with recognizable human beings when “Everybody Loves Raymond” went off the air.

Ellis has one great, understated moment, when Sarah (Odette Annable), the love of his life, confronts him about his failings, and you can see Rush realizes the gulf between the man he is and the man he’d like to be is a chasm he’ll never be able to breach. The show needs more of this. But no, it backs away from the edge.

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

The Night Shift gets the X-ray right for a series. Now it just needs to find a way to pump some new blood.

The writing is so scattered, it’s hard to find anyone, Montague or Capulet, to root for.

Underwood’s Ironside rolls over everyone in his life, figuratively and literally.... As flashbacks show, Ironside was shot in the back two years ago while pursuing a suspect. His ex-partner Gary (Brent Sexton) has never recovered emotionally from what happened that night.... Their prickly relationship now is the most daring part of the show.

There's more truth in 10 minutes of Animal Planet's "Finding Bigfoot."

There’s no way to self-medicate against the relentless drear of this new medical drama.