There's deliberate and there's plodding. This is plodding. Indeed, the jittery camera work and abrupt flashbacks almost take it from plodding to stumbling.... The acting styles differ greatly, yet none of the capable regulars hits a false note, whether playing subdued rage or over-the-top fervor.

A wildly uneven action-adventure-fantasy drama from executive producers Eric Kripke ("Revolution," "Supernatural") and Shawn Ryan ("The Shield," "The Unit"), it awkwardly follows a scientist, a soldier and a history professor pursuing the mysterious criminal who stole a secret time machine.

Fallon, 39, made an energetic and charming debut Monday night as the Tonight Show host. But providing the real rocket fuel for this high-profile launch were the many stars dropping by to wish him luck.

Thornton is sensational as the shattered Billy McBride, a one-time star litigator who took the ruins of his life and crawled into a whiskey bottle. When he's not on screen, you grow impatient for his return.

A sturdy family drama. [2 Apr 1994]

In a season overloaded with domestic sitcoms, Dave's World is distinguished by featuring the least annoying and most realistic kids, and by being based on the work of a Pulitzer Prize winner, humor columnist Dave Barry. [20 Sept 1993]

The jokes weren't marginally different in tone and quality than those delivered so expertly for so many years by his predecessor, Jon Stewart. It was all about his delivery, which seemed breathless, slightly rushed and a little uncertain.... New correspondent Roy Wood Jr., reporting on the discovery of running water on Mars, made a stronger impression Monday night than Noah.

Like "The X-Files," a series it resembles in both look and tone, "Threshold" is as much a horror show as it is a science-fiction program.

It’s raucously funny in its own right and in its own way. If the first season’s remaining nine episodes are anywhere near as laugh-out-loud hilarious as tonight’s opener, Barbershop: The Series will be nothing less than Showtime’s strongest entry yet in the comedy field. [14 Aug 2005, p.J1]

Peyton List stars in this immediately riveting mix of police drama and time-bending fantasy.

Worth watching? Oh yeah, particularly for the genius of Rush and Flynn. Despite the inconsistent nature of the dialogue, the series obviously has much to recommend it. It's superior, if not superlative.

[Carey is] a fresh and winning presence, but so strong that the show will have to work to see that the other characters hold their own. [13 Sep 1995]

It's another faulty futuristic fantasy drama patched together with used parts and overused designs.

While often great fun, the series' premiere occasionally shows the strain of trying to blend all of those genres into one sleek package. On the plus side of the Firefly universe, the show is expertly paced and is full of those wickedly humorous asides that fans of "Buffy" and its ever-improving spinoff, "Angel," expect from the mischievous Whedon. [20 Sept 2002, p.E1]

It's moving so fast that the missteps never turn into a full-fledged fall. More than compensating, Anderson and Mulroney deliver big time, while Gross and Erenberg make a surprisingly winning odd-couple team. If there is a weak link in this cast, it's probably Taylor, who has yet to convince us she's a savvy and experienced FBI agent.

Will is as sensual as it is suspenseful, as bawdy as it is bloody, as lusty as it it is lyrical.

If all of the characters were as 14-karat authentic as Goldie, I'm Dying Up Here might have had a fighting chance. Instead, even with Jim Carrey on board as an executive producer and Tom Dreesen along for the erratic ride as technical consultant, this Showtime newcomer only intermittently finds its rhythm and hits its stride as compelling drama.

The good news is that Snowfall, the searing FX drama about the 1980s crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles, does start moving at dazzling speed after a slow, plodding start. The bad news is that this occurs somewhere about the fourth episode.

Whatever the reason, or the combination of reasons, the second season of True Detective drags disappointingly along as wearisome second-tier stuff. That doesn't mean it's without merit. It doesn't mean there aren't dazzlingly surprising stretches.

Mirren is in full command of the role. ... But the script is nowhere near as commanding as her portrayal of Catherine. ... Our fascination with the story, though, comes and goes, even with Mirren consistently rising above and transcending the inconsistent writing.

Halfway through tonight's clunky and cartoonish debut, it dawns on you that we're stuck in the middle of Operation Letdown.

Loaded with bogus-pokus, Charmed is less witty and diverting than "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Its soap and fantasy elements ought to attract some of the same audience, but it's not likely to put many under a spell. [7 Oct 1998, p.1E]

It is revealing in its accidental way and, like the boy bands, rates as harmless diversion. [23 March 2000]

America doesn’t exactly need another urban crime drama, but this one demands and deserves attention. [22 Sep 2004]

The acting styles range from sullen underplaying to over-the-top melodrama, and that mix can be quite effective. But both can be carried too far, with the underplayed stuff tending toward somnambulism and the over-the-top extremes inducing a cringe or two.

Beneath all of the insanity, BrainDead again and again demonstrates it has a brain in its head. It's goofy-good-time stuff, all right, yet it has a point.

When it's up and running at full power, Childhood's End is as intriguing, provocative and unnerving as any visit to the "fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man." And there are many such stretches in these six hours. Yet there also are slow, padded, uninvolving stretches when the direction and dialogue wander off course. Ragged in structure and pacing, the miniseries is a slick-looking vehicle that occasionally stalls and sputters toward an uncertain future.

Visually arresting, epic in ambition and impressively acted by a splendid cast, The Stand" looks like King's close encounter with "The Andromeda Strain" crossing "Wild Palms, building its suspense around a deadly epidemic that wipes out most of the world's population and leaves the survivors seeking a new beginning for good or evil. [8 May 1994, p.1J]