The show is so self-conscious of everything it’s doing that nothing has quite the effect its creators want it to have.

If you're a teenage boy who loved "300"--or any other demographic who loved "300"--you may well dig all the digitized, slow-motion blood splurts, the abundant nudity (albeit with some of the full frontal coming from male characters as well as female) and the stylized, computer-generated backgrounds. But stay far away if none of those things make you say "Hells yeah!"

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

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.

Journeyman doesn't do anything especially interesting with its time-twisting premise. It's competently produced, but unless you have a tremendous amount of affection for McKidd left over from his work as the insane Lucius Vorenus on HBO's "Rome," it's skippable.

The show inspires nothing but my apathy.

The CGI is still pretty cool, and some chuckles are wrought from the futuristic premise (Iggy Azalea is considered a classic in 2065), but at its heart Minority Report is a by-the-book cop procedural with turgid writing and complete absence of subtlety.

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.

Backstrom isn't edgy; he's a formulaic anti-hero with too much emphasis on the anti- and very little evidence of the hero.

Basically, it's a dumber version of "The Shield." Swayze's performance and the always-memorable Chicago locales are frequently undercut by dialogue that's clumsy and/or spells out things we can see for ourselves, and by model-turned-actor Fimmel, last seen on the WB's deservedly short-lived "Tarzan" remake.

"Vanished" is already lacking in the kind of star performances that make "Prison Break" or "24" worthwhile even when they're foot-dragging.

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

A work in progress.

The Flashpoint pilot is competent, but very retro (there's an extended sequence of the team driving to a crisis point with their sirens blaring, the sort of thing that went out 15 years ago) and fairly dull.

It's an odd little show, often more David Lynch than David Milch, and after three episodes I'm still not sure I understand it all.

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.

Jenna Elfman (who plays a newspaper movie critic who gets pregnant after a one-night stand with the young guy on the left, played by Jon Foster) seemed like a loose, natural comedienne, but she's trying way too hard to sell the jokes here-possibly because she knows no one's going to buy them without a whole lot of help.

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]

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 sex is all implied rather than shown, as is much of the drug use. It's a very PG-13 approach to potentially R-rated subject matter--and that's the problem.

The show (which is shot on the old Stars Hollow set from "Gilmore Girls") seems like a WB show circa 2002--not one of the good ones, but a copy of a copy of a copy of one of the good ones.

Any evidence of the source material's wit or grit is MIA. We're left with a show that's as cheesy as it is ridiculously improbable.

Hoffman was replaced by the talented British comic actor Steve Coogan, and I can't fault his performance. I can fault Auslander for writing Thom as a sanctimonious, pedantic, needling, incessantly outraged man of privilege and then expecting us to care about him.

All the gunplay, pedal-to-the-metal action and cartoon villains cheapen any serious talk of what's going on in the city.

This show will run on poisonous rivalries, hidden agendas, and unbridled ambitions. And something about a Mormon temple. Blood & Oil doesn't dig deep enough.

It was the usual schtick from Leno--which is probably just what his fans wanted to hear after he'd been out of late night for a year and off TV altogether for weeks--with jokes about the Olympics, Dick Cheney, and, of course, the flagging fortunes of the network he's on.

Basically, [the lead character is] a collection of every stereotypical romantic comedy and chick-lit trait, made especially annoying by Heche.

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.

It's not just familiar, but lazy.

Eddie Kaye Thomas is fun as the occasionally felonious brainiac psychologist, but the rest of the characters are pretty one-dimensional, that one dimension being their social awkwardness.

It's a fairly mundane mystery populated by cardboard characters with poor decision-making skills, starting with Ben, who immediately becomes the prime suspect, and his wife Christy.

Pick your adjective--Predictable. Insufferable. Detestable. Tacky. --and it fits.

The material is so inherently dramatic that there are occasional moments where Three Rivers is affecting despite itself. But it's also a danger sign that one of the premiere episode's story lines has absolutely nothing to do with a patient in need of an organ.

While The Royals swings wildly from satire to sentimentality, from romance to raunch, and from camp to, well, crap, and only in the latter does it find its footing.

The one moment people will talk about, and remember, from The Jay Leno Show debut was one of the least comic of Jay's career. It's going to get NBC some water cooler talk, and a lot of website hits, but it's not going to work as a signature "This is why Jay is awesome" clip like I think they were hoping.

Only intermittently funny but unceasingly crass.

If you want a show with engaging characters and drama, and not just a public service announcement about the very real value of our country's nurses, then Hawthorne fails to deliver.

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.

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]

To find a network drama that bears sustained comparison to ABC's Kingdom Hospital, you'd have to go all the way back to 1990, when the same network premiered David Lynch's "Twin Peaks." Alternately random and brilliant, the 15-hour, limited-run series "Kingdom Hospital" has a similarly indescribable vibe. Set in a huge Maine hospital, it plays like a cross of "M*A*S*H," "Six Feet Under" and "The Shining." King, his talented ensemble cast and his capable director, Craig R. Baxley, have created one of the creepiest locales in TV history. But they don't limit themselves to mere spookiness. They go wherever they please, and their brazen confidence demands that we follow along. [3 March 2004, p.39]

All this should seem precious and dumb, but it doesn't, thanks to the cast's deadpan intelligence and some sharp, self-aware writing (the characters' names often refer to characters in fiction by J.D. Salinger ). Best of all, Travis fails to wrap everything up in a neat, happy way; the second episode, which is much better than the first, essentially starts all over again, picking up on the time-travel mayhem Travis wreaked a week earlier. [27 Sept 2002, p.59]

It's just as muddled as "Once" often is, and too ridiculous to be taken seriously as an epic as "Thrones," which is not surprising, given the show's long stay in development purgatory.

Valentine is more what I was anticipating when I heard about the MRC-on-CW deal: low-budget, disposable and artery-clogging in its levels of cheese.

"Hell's Kitchen" cribs both the format of "The Apprentice" and that show's major problems. As with the two "Apprentice" sequels, the cast is filled with people who appear to have no clue what they're doing - or, at least, are placed in positions in which they'll inevitably fail so Ramsay can cuss them out. [30 Sep 2005]

The TV series is a rote procedural that dulls the film's premise further by making it an ensemble piece (the monomaniacal nature of Neeson's Mills is the point of "Taken") and has a lead actor, Clive Standen of History's "Vikings," most notable for not being Neeson.

The humor is generally broad, although Wilson doesn't always play it that way, and when she showcases a bit of wry, knowing wit we remember from "Pitch Perfect," I see glimmers of hope.

A welcome surprise - an unabashed melodrama that doesn't wink at the audience but doesn't take itself too seriously, either. Every choice it makes, from pacing to photography to music, seems just about right, and the casting is inspired. (I appreciate that it filled its lead roles with two young men who are somewhat credible on the court.) [23 Sept 2003, p.43]

McKellen, and the production design, and some smart use of Brian Wilson songs on the soundtrack (The Beach Boys' "I Know There's an Answer" is the miniseries' cheeky final tune) weren't enough to overcome my need for coherence.

Addison isn't very strong or decisive in her professional capacity either, spending most of the pilot waffling on whether she should have left Seattle Grace.

Silly as it is, the show works as pop-mythic eye candy. The pilot alone a motherlode of iconic pictures. [3 Oct 2003, p.53]

The procedural element is smartly done, the stakes realistically high, and Atwell's chemistry with Cahill's D.A. compelling.

CSI: Cyber is perfectly serviceable television, with nothing distracting--David Caruso dramatically interrupting his own cheesy ripostes to don his sunglasses, say--to take you out of the story, but not a whole lot to keep you breathless for another.

If "Donnellys" wants a shot at doing better than "Studio 60" in its timeslot, it needs at least a hint of a larger-than-life figure.

The Player has the feel of one of those high-octane action thrillers that Hollywood pumps out--you get caught up in the moment, but the intricacies of the plot dissolve the second you step out of the theater.

The issue I have with the rape-by-orangutan scene in Unhitched is that it's not funny, nor does it even seem to be trying to be funny. It's lazy comedy, substituting shock value for wit and invention, and it typifies everything that follows on this lame excuse for a sitcom.

It's an hour of unpleasant yet bland people occasionally bumping into each other and saying racially provocative things.

Whatley’s quick conversion to the cause takes away what little tension there is in the partnership, and is emblematic of a larger problem. McGinn needs the people that she meets to buy into the idea of reincarnation, or else she can’t get anything done.

This show does nothing interesting with the premise, relying almost entirely, it seems, on the brand to break out.

They can sing, but not well enough to make you forget the sub-Lifetime made-for-TV-movie dialogue, whiplash plotting and utterly laughable dramatic moments.

The worst that can be said for Manhattan Love Story is that it's bland.

It is every organ transplant storyline you've ever seen before on "ER" or "Chicago Hope" or elsewhere, told in the most unimaginative fashion possible, acted out by a competent group of actors not given much to play.

It's not a bad show, but the mechanics of how they're going to abduct their latest target are far less engaging than how the team interacts with each other and how each member fights his or her compulsions.

If you're not expecting much, you'll come away satisfied. But compared to a good episode of "Family Guy" - or even a mediocre "Simpsons" episode - it's pretty thin gruel. [28 Apr 2005]

The disappointing new project from "Arrested Development" creator Mitchell Hurwitz is mainly a reminder of how much the "Arrested" cast--several of whom provide voice work here--added to that show.

Mercy isn't just derivative; it's stridently, obnoxiously derivative.

Painful, pointless, obnoxious... I would almost rather have The Jay Leno Show back.

What the obnoxious "Cashmere Mafia" and now the dull Lipstick Jungle suggest is that it's not as easy to recreate the "Sex and the City" phenomenon as assembling three or four attractive actresses of a certain age and pairing them with a name producer from the HBO show.

Who wants to watch a less funny, vaguely cuddlier House impersonator?

It's the first outright catastrophe of FX's post-"The Shield" era.

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

Mental was produced on a relative shoestring by Fox Telecolombia, and there's a flatness not only to the sets (which look not unlike what you might see on a Univision show), but the dialogue and characterizations.

There’s nothing especially novel or insightful, let alone funny, about the show’s take on impending parenthood.

Basically, The Deep End is "Grey's Anatomy" with lawyers, and the execution is as cynical and flat as that premise sounds.

It looks cheap (even though CBS decided to scrap the entire original pilot and make a new one), the action sequences are rote, the dialogue is mostly generic, and the characters are all one-dimensional.

The show wallows in lowest common denominator jokes that more often than not don't land.

The show plays like bad imitation noir where the private eye can occasionally sink his teeth into the villain.

TThe writing is stilted, with every other sentence from Rourke's mouth a ready-made movie poster tagline.

Chestnut, a reliably charming presence on screens small and large, is by far the best the thing about this painfully conventional procedural that borrows aethestically from "Miami Vice."

There's potentially a good show here; the pilot's just a miss.

It's not a great sitcom, not even really a good one, and the strain of trying to sell such mediocre material will no doubt get to Garrett in a few weeks, but it's still vastly better than its companion show.

It's a bizarro comedy-cop procedural-mommy drama that does nothing well, and the murder mystery exceptionally badly.

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.

There's some amusing material on the margins of the show--the guys use OnStar to settle a debate about the lyrics to a song on the radio, Dougie admits his marriage isn't perfect and his wife "sometimes she gets up in the middle of the night and bakes in her sleep"--but outside of Jerry Minor's winning performance as the overextended but always cheerful Aubrey, it's completely forgettable.

It’s lazy, predictable and spectacularly tone-deaf.

It is really, really atrocious. Not so-bad-it's-good. Just bad. Plain bad. Why am I watching this?-level bad.

"Ellie" has gone from being an avant-garde failure to a very average failure. [15 Apr 2003]

Kath & Kim writers, meanwhile, seem to have nothing but contempt for their heroines. Kim is willfully ignorant, rude and obnoxious in a fashion that has no redeeming qualities, and Kath is mainly an unhappy blank who lets her daughter walk all over her.

It's a cheesy-looking, indifferently plotted, repetitious piece of work. ... The creature effects don't pass muster in the Spielberg era, the pacing is slack, the dialogue is dull, and the whole thing looks washed out and feels rushed and poorly thought out. [28 Nov 2002]

It abandons all of Kelley's strengths, like the legal setting and male bonding, and drowns itself in his weaknesses: women discussing their feelings, women flirting with men, women acting body-conscious... basically, anything involving the female gender.

They've assembled a cast suffering a major charisma deficit and given them wooden, cliche-riddled dialogue to deliver.

If you've watched ABC at all this summer, you've essentially seen all Wipeout has to offer: people of various shapes, sizes and ages all falling face-first into the mud while trying to complete an obstacle course that's been designed to be all but impossible to finish unscathed.

Big Shots, an obnoxious waste of time that's likely the season's worst new show.

This is a conventional crime show draped in period trappings when it should be steeped in the era.

There's little visual style to Notorious, and the main case of the week is standard fare, a trying-to-be-twisty but quite predictable tale of a tech billionaire accused in a hit-and-run, while the B plot about a political blackmailing is completely forgettable.

[Of the two new soaps,] only "Fashion House" seems to understand that it's supposed to be a guilty pleasure.

Despite its silly trappings, Farmer Wants a Wife is neither appalling nor unintentionally funny enough to merit sitting through yet another contrived dating show where the biggest prize would be for someone, anyone, to escape with a bit of their dignity intact.

It's dull and predictable and makes that old '60s time-travel series Time Tunnel look like the work of Robert Heinlein. [22 Sept 1997, p.33]

If it weren't for [Lithgow's] shameless bellowing, "20 Good Years" would be excruciating, instead of the (very) occasionally amusing hackfest it's turned out to be.