Many aspects of the 12-part Rome might leave you cold. While certainly impressive in scope and scale, HBO’s awkward stab at a series is being made with a programming weapon that’s often blunt, dull and unwieldy... Where Rome gets tripped up is in the uneven performances and lackluster writing. This is what truly causes the fall of this particular Roman empire. [28 Aug 2005, p.J1]

Chiklis is saddled with a series that would need months of polishing just to be mediocre. The subtitle could be, "When Bad Shows Happen to Good People." [23 March 2000, p.6E]

Nothing on this futuristic landscape stands out: the performances, the dialogue, the direction, the special effects. The premise is solid enough. Yet everything constructed on this foundation seems to have been fashioned from nothing more substantial than cardboard.

The show at least moves at a fast clip and blazes past some impressive scenery ... Despite the higher production values, "The Amazing Race" offers little more than a blur of people shouting, "Which way do we go?" [5 Sep 2001]

As Barry struggles with his sense of identity, so does this series. There is little consistency of tone here, and the efforts to depict a realistic Middle Eastern political struggle are undermined by campy and melodramatic moments.

In spirit, mood, tone and execution, this somber and sodden series feels more like an attempt to do a Stephen King-like horror series.

Sure, it's all very derivative. It's purposely so. That's not the problem with these scripts. The problem is that, despite all the blood, too many anemic characters fail to register on the flesh-and-blood scale.

The truly scary thing about Stephen King's Rose Red is its running time. Spectral chains aren't the only things dragging in this rambling haunted-house miniseries from the horrormeister, whose best-written best sellers move at a frighteningly crisp pace. There are times when "Rose Red" seems to hardly move at all. With its sluggish six hours stretched over three nights, the ABC miniseries is a case of way too little story occupying way too much prime-time space. [26 Jan 2002, p.E1]

Has little to offer but formula storytelling and conventional crime-drama techniques.

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

A rambling collection of artlessly tossed-together scenes, this disjointed four-hour hodgepodge wanders aimlessly, becoming more murky and melodramatic with each miserable misstep. [13 May 2001, p.8I]

It's like watching "Big Brother" with a less nutty and less interesting cast, or the old "Bob Newhart Show" without Bob - or laughs. [6 Oct 2000, p.5E]

This isn’t a parody. It’s deadly serious. And deadly is a description that also fits the direction and writing. ... Drearily paced, clunkily written “Christmas Carol.” Everything seems to take forever as we move awkwardly and clumsily from scene to scene.

Obvious similarities to the Jason Bourne films and other espionage stories are only part of the derivative drama's problems. The lurching plot turns are preposterous. The supporting characters are thinly drawn. The structure is terribly disjointed. And the dialogue ranges from ham-fisted to stilted.

Six Feet Under is as artificial as the AstroTurf funeral directors place around a grave site. [3 June 2001, p.91]

It substitutes mocking attitude (or lack of attitude) for wit, has no sense of story and has no discernible jokes - just a lot of ostensibly "out there" ideas it is unable to develop. It isn't as memorable or smart as the "bad sitcom" conventions it spoofs. [31 May 2000, p.3E]

The ploddingly paced, awkwardly constructed Showtime production manages to turn the spectacular rise and fall of former Fox News chief Roger Ailes into a slog that is as tiresome as it is tedious.

More insipid than insightful, Popular fails to fill the bill. Emotionally overwrought and intellectually underdeveloped, the fledgling series is everything you've come to expect from a Hollywood examination of high school - and less. [29 Sept 1999, p.4E]

What's missing from Blunt Talk is any degree of wit, any genuine character development, any sense of comic structure that delights, rather than depresses, the viewer. What should be winning leaves you wincing.

The problem is not the simple lack of an original idea. It's that the material is so staggeringly lame. [21 Mar 1995]

The writing on "Commander in Chief" often is so distressingly thin and pale, this West Wing drama will suffer in comparison to the robust early years of, well, NBC's "The West Wing."

This incredibly trite and preposterous series are serious about all the hackneyed twaddle lumbering and stumbling into view Monday night. Just when you think it can't get more laughably bad, it does.

Coercion might be the only way to get an audience for this incredibly labored legal drama.

While it might sound like fun, the premise is so flat-out dopey that it's impossible to care about any of the characters or alleged story, and the leaden dialogue discourages any attention that the occasional cool gadgetry might attract. [22 Sept 1997, p.5E]

This funny fellow is trapped in a series that isn't even remotely funny. [27 Mar 2002, p.E1]

This is a leading contender for the title of worst new show of the season.

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