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."