There's a lot of backstory, and there's a lot of plot that makes the first couple of episodes a bit difficult to ease into, but at the end of the second episode, Pizzolato's penchant for abrupt violence with a side of freakiness will leave you with panting for more.

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.

Eli Stone, lightweight and proudly quirky.

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

Doherty and Milano, together with some silly dialogue and plots, promise some good campy fun. The problems come whenever their third sibling, played by Holly Marie Combs ("Picket Fences"), is on screen. You see, Combs can actually act, and whenever she starts to emote, she gives the trashy proceedings a bit more reality than they can handle. [7 Oct 1998, p.39]

Maybe McBride has more pitches in his arsenal than he's shown so far, but the repertoire on display in Eastbound & Down feels too limited for a long stint on HBO's mound.

The central mystery still reaches to the Highest Levels of American Government, but it's a more intimate story, with fine performances by the three young children who start hearing voices, and more worryingly, taking direction from an unseen force.

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

There isn't a series here; just the pitch meeting for a very expensive, very loud, very dopey action movie.

While the jokes may be funnier than "King" has been in a long time, the new show also feels more uneven and strained.

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]

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.

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 concept and the characters start to wear thin within an episode or two.

If the "Shark" writers feel the need to, in the very first episode, soften their hero in a way the "House" writers haven't had to do in two-plus seasons, how warm and fuzzy will the character be by November sweeps, let alone the end of the season?

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.

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

The show fails to engage on any level, striving at best for a vague earnestness.

The ABC show is more blandly cast and written [thanrench import "The Returned"], but it's still capable on occasion of hitting you in the gut emotionally, if not scrambling your brains.

The humor in Divorce is so bleak and the characters are so toxic that you may crave a "Silkwood" shower afterward.That's not to say there aren't funny lines or excellent performances by the core cast of Parker, Haden Church, and Molly Shannon and Tracy Letts as the awful friends whose mutual meltdown at a party sparks Parker's Frances to ask for a divorce. Trouble is, they feel like performances from different shows.

Beals does hard-edged well, her bluntness an effective buffer against the potential treacle of the weekly cases.

Samantha Who? isn't remotely as bad as the worst of this season's rookie class ("Cavemen," "Big Shots," CBS' upcoming "Viva Laughlin"), but it's ultimately forgettable in a way that a show about an amnesiac would probably want to avoid.

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]

The grand, star-crossed romance between Alice and Cyrus is promising, and turning Alice into a willful Victorian riot grrl is a move that will resonate with many viewers. As in "Once," the computer-generated landscapes and creatures don't quite work--they look do look unworldly, but in a cheesy way.

The satire is sharp, including a scene in which one sister texts with her killer as he's trying to kill her. But the two-hour premiere does itself no favors, so overstuffed with scares, silliness, intrigues and occasional moments of real horror that it fails to coalesce into something resembling coherence.

As someone who has grown exhausted by frenetic and increasingly absurd plotting of "Scandal" and "How To Get Away With Murder," I suspect "The Catch" will prove at least as durable simply because the stakes aren't as high here, and it doesn't take itself as seriously.

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

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