For the most part, it's an eye-opening look at the business of show, with a lot of Hollywood color throughout. [29 Nov 2001, p.57]

Nobody likes a know-it-all - especially when he starts pointing out something you could have figured out by yourself. Let's hope this unusual man gets some equally unusual puzzles in the coming weeks. [11 July 2002, p.35]

Eli Stone, lightweight and proudly quirky.

I want to see another episode or two before I can tell if The Philanthropist has the potential to be anything more than a summer trifle. But thanks to Purefoy, it's at least an entertaining trifle.

It still has some problems, and may not be able to milk the concept any longer than the Brits did, but the central concept--modern law-enforcement veteran has to deal with a world where forensics science is in its infancy and civil rights are treated as inconveniences at best--is still appealing, and in some ways more so when it's transplanted to the early '70s New York immortalized in cop films like "The French Connection" and "Serpico."

The Middleman is at once retro and post-modern, the sort of result you'd get if you threw "The Tick" and the '50s black-and-white "Superman" TV show into a blender. And it's quite a lot of fun.

The show does such an amazing job of evoking a world not that long-gone, and in a way that makes it equal parts alluring and appalling.

It's definitely not sunshine and lollipops, but series creator David Hollander manages to push the right emotional buttons. [25 Sept 2001, p.33]

The thing is, if you can let go of the "Groundhog Taye" problem, it's a decent little thriller with a sci-fi twist.

If you can get past the blatant attempts to sell an ABC News production to fans of ABC dramas--prepare yourself for a lot of going-into-commercial cliffhangers where the surgical patients don't seem to be waking up--Hopkins is a rewarding, and often surprising, experience.

By reattaching his misery to 9/11, and by reminding us that everyone around him still shares in the miseries of that day, Rescue Me has lit a new fire under both the man and his show.

The pilot, in which Yost liberally borrows Leonard’s trademark lean dialogue from "Fire in the Hole," has a swagger to it, and also a sly sense of humor....Without Leonard’s writing to directly adapt, the later episodes are a mixed bag.

Fishburne doesn't show up until halfway through the episode and mostly stays in the background once he does, letting the intellectual chess match between Grissom and DJK be the focus. And that feels right.

The humor provided by the new setting makes the show a bit more palatable than it was last season, but Nip/Tuck is still Nip/Tuck, for both good and ill.

Sutter has some interesting characters and ideas here, but the intensity isn't there yet.

Outside of McGee, the new season suggests that Rescue Me has gone as far as it can go as a comedy/drama hybrid. Almost all of the best scenes are the funny ones - or the ones that start dark, then turn funny, like Tommy brainstorming with Mike (Mike Lombardi) on the best way to euthanize his ailing mother.[12 June 2007, p.41]

It's not a finished product yet, and Poehler and the writers need to find more ways to distinguish Leslie from Michael Scott, but funny forgives an awful lot.

What The Unusuals lacks in cinematic sheen, it compensates with humor and a more interesting group of characters.

It's a solid little comedy, in which Scrubs fans can recognize the spirit of the show they loved, even if it's not Scrubs at its best.

The world of the warehouse, and the interplay with the characters as they deal with it, are amusing enough to mark Warehouse 13 as a very promising summer series--regardless of the name of the channel it's on.

At times, the comedy tries too hard--Booth keeps driving on the wrong side of the road and doesn't seem to know what tea is--but then there comes a moment where the writers get the characters dialed in just right, and then the show is irresistible.

Has a fine, film noirish vibe and an irresistible mystery hook. [25 Sep 2002]

Overall, it feels more like the good old days than Grey's has in a long time.

"Kidnapped" plays out like a point-by-point criticism of everything "Vanished" gets wrong.

I doubt any gay person will see him- or herself represented on Queer as Folk with absolute realism and accuracy. It's basically a trashy soap opera with a veneer of social criticism a gay, sexually explicit "Melrose Place." But it's fun all the same addictive, suspenseful and sometimes moving, a populist glimpse of a subculture that pop culture rarely examines. [1 Dec 2000, p.F1]

While it's great that series like these can find a home on pay cable, it's a shame they feel the need to live up to the adult reputation most cable series have. "Soul Food" the series continues the unfortunate R-rated tradition of "Soul Food" the movie. [26 Jun 2000]

Though there isn't anything appreciably wrong with the third season, it's hard to fight the feeling that maybe Dexter is a concept that has reached its expiration date.

It's very well-done teen angst, but at the same time made me feel very old and slightly pervy while watching it.

If you gave up on either one because they seemed tired or just annoying in their familiarity, now might be a good time to try a return visit.

"Reno 911!" isn't quite as rich and subtle as the best improvised comedy - the basic format becomes repetitive, and the performers sometimes drive the material into absurd directions when it might have been funnier to keep things smaller - but all in all, it's still a very funny show. [23 Jul 2003]

Jackie remains watchable because of Falco's no-nonsense, weary performance, and because of the off-kilter comic brilliance of Merritt Wever as Jackie's bubbly, spastic protégé Zoey.

If the world that Simon, Burns, Wright and company drop us into can be confusing at first (mirroring, as they intended, the confusion that Wright felt at the time), it's a fully-realized one that's both thousands of miles away (literally and figuratively) from the Baltimore of "The Wire" and one that will feel very familiar to anyone who spent a lot of time watching McNulty and Bunk drink at the train tracks.

The new edition delivers many of the same thrills and intelligent debate that made the original so exceptional. But the mere act of bringing it back creates problems the original never had to deal with.

It's still not more than disposable fluff, and I expect Vince to get his stardom back by season's end, but by making his career a metaphor for what the show had become, Entourage for the first time is more entertaining than Vince's life must be.

For the seven of you who remember "Andy Richter," Better Off Ted isn't quite as good--in part because star Jay Harrington isn't as innately funny as Richter (and he's mainly used as a straight man), and also because Fresco ditched the fantasy scenes that were often the most memorable part of the earlier series--but it's still a breath of fresh air in the present stale environment for TV comedy, as well as an accidentally timely show.

Ashes to Ashes has a cheekier energy that the original "Life on Mars," one that carries the show even when the police procedural stories are relatively bland.

As wonderfully played by Kenneth Branagh, Wallander is a fine addition to the tradition of PBS' "Mystery!"

Aliens is very much in the vein of previous nerd comedies like "Malcolm in the Middle" and "Freaks and Geeks," though it's not as explosively funny as either one of them.

The transformations aren't complete by episode's end--though at least Dekker chops off his floppy Emo bangs--but it's a step in the right direction for a series that struggled to live up to its potential and pedigree last spring.

Chocolate News has the funny part down; now it just needs to make some fresher observations.

Whether this is all weirdness for weirdness' sake or something more complex isn't clear, not even after the first four episodes.

Perhaps recognizing the professional problem, the show's writers return with an episode where the crime has a painful personal connection for Grace. Some of the scenes still drag, but it's stronger than most of the season one episodes.

While HBO’s new "How to Make It in America" is light on plot, characterization and humor, it’s got atmosphere to spare. And for a few episodes, that may be enough.

The law students are an assortment of not yet very distinctive ambitious types, with the exception being audience surrogate Wes Gibbons (Alfred Enoch)

Tonally, Privileged is an amalgam of the CW's other shows in this genre: more contemporary and (at times) funnier than the new "90210" but not as nihilistic as "Gossip Girl." And Garcia's both charming and a promising light comedienne.

Hipsters will roll their eyes at the show's many cliches - decent small-town folk, cynical city slickers, the healing power of the great outdoors, etc. - but everyone else will be grateful. And fortunately, some of the performances are just odd and striking enough to reduce the sugar quotient. [16 Sept 2002, p.23]

With this cast, and the writing of Fresco and company, I expect Ted season two to again hit the heights of that first season. But these two episodes are a reminder of how hard it is to pull that off.

I've since seen two more episodes, which in some ways intrigued me even more than the pilot. It's not "Battlestar Galactica", in that it swaps out the military components of that show for a bit of teen angst and soap opera intrigue, but I really like the lead performances by Eric Stoltz and Esai Morales (two actors who in previous roles often made me feel like there was something missing), and the social commentary is just as sharp here as it was on "BSG."

The jokes that do hit on "Life and Times of Tim" suggest that Dildarian might be onto something really good if given time to fix the slow spots.

The two-hour pilot episode was engaging and fun in a way that NBC's other throwback dramas ("Knight Rider," "My Own Worst Enemy") have failed to be.

Like the movie that inspired it, Parenthood isn’t an instant classic, but it’s smart and warm and knowing, and it casts its net so wide that at least part of it should connect with you.

Some episodes and moments have such undeniable dramatic power that you may weep; others may just leave you scratching your head. [9 Sept 2001, p.1]

When Doe is just exploring the depth and breadth of his great brain - playing a virtuoso rendition of "My Funny Valentine," showing off for a crowd of library patrons - John Doe feels like a show that a lot of people may want to get to know. [19 Sept 2002]

Cranston's performance alone is enough to keep me watching for a while, but I'd like to see something resembling a completed formula, and soon.

The whole space cowboy gimmick shouldn't work, but Whedon and co-creator Tim Minear have managed to create a world where space stations and men on horseback can plausibly co-exist. Little touches like deliberately old-fashioned dialogue - one character describes the bar fight as "just an honest brawl between folk" - help immensely. [19 Sept 2002]

There's loads of potential here; like "The Simpsons," Groening's new effort manages to be edgy and reassuring at the same time, which means it can lead us anyplace and be confident we'll follow with a big grin. [26 Mar 1999]

So, to sum up: decadent and adult, but too entertaining to be this week's harbinger of the apocalypse.

It’s a solid meat-and-potatoes family comedy; next to "Hank," it’s the next "Malcolm in the Middle."

Royal Pains can't help but suffer in comparison, but it's not a bad summer diversion--which, frankly, is all that "Burn Notice" was in its first season.

The Ex List has the kind of silly romantic comedy premise that makes you feel dumber just for hearing it, but the show itself is actually fairly smart and funny--for the time being, at least.

Another Period also skewers gender politics (and classism and the cult of celebrity), but the jokes are not particularly charged, aiming for--and granted, usually reaching--bawdiness, not brilliance.

Newcomers to the franchise--there may be a quite a few, as 24: Legacy gets the prime spot right after the Super Bowl--may get sucked in, mostly thanks to Hawkins' charisma, although Miranda Otto is also very watchable as Rebecca Ingram, the tough CTU director who is leaving the agency to help her husband, played by Jimmy Smits, run for president.

The era is a rich vein to mine, and to their credit, the creators are light on pirate cliches--I do not believe one "aargh!" is uttered--but at the same time, there's a little too much emphasis on pirate economics and labor disputes than is necessary, and the sprawling cast and hierarchy a little hard to keep straight.

Sometimes it seems that Darabont is more in thrall to the rise of the West Coast mob than to the story he's allegedly trying to tell.

Both Feldman and Milioti are appealing, but the show doesn't feel particularly fresh, and there's probably one gimmick too many.

The first episode is not as edgy (or, quite frankly, as funny) as it thinks it is. Olson is a gifted physical actress but the woman-behaving-badly shtick starts off a bit toothless. The second episode is sharper.

Gruffudd's characterization is a bit uneven; sometimes he's gruff and aloof and still pining over the loss of his World War II-era love, yet he's able to turn on the charm when he wants to.

This is supposed to be a cat-and-mouse game, but it's more like a kitten with a ball of yarn.

Produced by Jason Katims ("Friday Night Lights," "Parenthood"), About a Boy is snappy with some well-observed one-liners, but it's a fairly conventional sitcom about an unconventional family.

For the most part, they're neither fish nor fowl: not gory enough for the "Saw"/"Hostel" crowd, and not genuinely scary enough for anybody else.

Easy Money was created by Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, who wrote for "The Sopranos," and the show in many ways feels like a low-budget HBO (or FX) series.

It's fun and diverting, and certainly has the potential to be much more, based on Thomas' work on the original series--and the glimpses we see of Cannavale and Paulson in these roles. But right now, it seems less a great romance rekindled than a reunion fueled by nostalgia instead of passion.

The Sunday premiere has a nice mix of thrills, comedy and pathos, but is there a show here?

Cougar Town, on the other hand, is still finding itself, but it’s already much better than the title would suggest.

Last fall, "Studio 60" would have easily been the best new drama; this fall, it's lucky to squeeze into the top five, and a lot of that is based on potential more than what's on screen.

In an episode like next week's, in which Allison spots the ghost of a recently deceased man watching a murder, the twistiness works; in one like tonight's, featuring a complicated web of affairs, betrayals and possible reincarnations, things become so tangled that the story and Arquette can't keep up.

Like most Burnett productions, "The Apprentice" is half game show, half sociological experiment - a glitzy, fast-paced TV program that simultaneously manages to critique and celebrate the Western World's cutthroat obsession with success. [7 Jan 2004]

Baker has an unforced masculinity that allows him to play likable bastards like this, and with the other regular characters (played by Robin Tunney, Owain Yeoman, Tim Kang and Amanda Righetti) so far ciphers at best, he's able to carry the show by his lonesome.

Whedon is a vastly better storyteller than anyone involved in "My Own Worst Enemy," so Dollhouse can be very engaging, even if the premise doesn't make sense. Dushku isn't as versatile as the role demands--many weeks, the only difference in Echo's persona seems to be her wardrobe--but Whedon and his writers certainly are.

The new TNT drama Leverage isn't a great show, but it may just be the exact right show at the exact right time.

The longer this show goes on, the more it seems like a network soap in cable drama drag. ... "Housewives" is a depressingly safe show, one that cushions the impact of its plot twists with the dramatic equivalent of air bags. [27 Sep 2005]

A schizophrenic pilot that's more interesting in parts than as a whole.

It looks great, makes good use of Los Angeles locations and has a solid ensemble cast (including Regina King and Tom Everett Scott as detectives). But it feels emotionally empty in the same way "Third Watch" so often did.

Magnificent Seve" can't hold a candle to its cinematic predecessor, or to most of the old TV classics like Gunsmoke. But in a world where all the cowboys rode off into the sunset decades ago, we'll take a watered-down Western just fine, ma'am. [3 Jan 1998]

It feels, at times, like the episodes are trying too hard to be self-referential, with lots of jokes at the expense of NBC and General Electric, and with Baldwin seeming to address the audience directly at the start of the premiere.

Like all the Bruckheimer procedurals... you know what you're getting from the jump: solid but unspectacular acting and storytelling that will leave you satisfied without rocking your world.

What you do after surviving the end of the world as you know it is an intriguing premise, and when "Jericho" sticks close to that, it's one of this season's more promising new dramas.

The larger problem may be whether there's enough material to cover an entire season.

For now, at least, the satirical elements aren't as sharp as other popular cartoons like "The Simpsons" or "King of the Hill" or even "Beavis & Butt-Head." [13 Aug 1997]

Lewis is a strong enough actor (again, see "Band of Brothers") that there are moments where he pulls together all these tics into a character who could be interesting, but too much time gets wasted on pedestrian mysteries to give him room to work.

Part of the excitement of "Watching Ellie" comes from wondering whether the people who made it can get around the creative obstacles they created. [26 Feb 2002]

Neither trainwreck nor masterpiece, the new "90210" was exactly what nobody expected it would be: remarkably faithful in tone and spirit to the original adventures of Brandon, Brenda, Scott Scanlon and company.

There's plenty of humiliation in I Survived a Japanese Game Show as well, but there it's so varied and strange--and very much in keeping with what I understand of those shows--that it doesn't get repetitive or annoying.

Damages offers two superb performances by old pros Glenn Close and Ted Danson.... One thing it doesn't have: a compelling main character. It's a doughnut show: lots of sweet, satisfying goodness around the edges, nothing in the middle.

Toward the end of the second episode, two characters who have no business acting chummy with each other get in the back of a car together and do exactly that. And rather than make me eager to pop in my screener of the third episode (which I did, eventually), it just killed all the buzz I had built up to that point.

I don't know that there's a long-running series here--even the pilot runs out of steam before the end--but I did laugh several times.

The pieces shouldn't fit together--Earl's celestial presence with Grace's raging sex life, discussions of metaphysics with police procedural plots--but somehow they do.

Even when "My Boys" isn't wildly funny (which would be most of the time, frankly), it has a lot of charm.