The premise is pretty standard Joseph Campbell, journey of the hero stuff, but the execution is poor.

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've somehow never seen any of the twelve dozen procedural crime shows that CBS does, it might feel a little new, but too often the scenes with Don and his colleagues feel obligatory, like everyone is doing their best to keep the plot moving until Charlie bursts in with the correct digits. [21 Jan 2005]

"Family Guy" ... consists of almost nothing but pop culture references. ... Now, some of these gags are side-splittingly funny ... but there are way too many of them. [9 Apr 1999]

Despite that all-too-familiar set-up, Heroes Reborn gets off to a promising start, with some fresh, sympathetic characters and a gentle introduction baited with a little mythology from the original to keep those fans on the hook.

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.

What's there is fascinating. More than perhaps anyone writing for TV, Carter understands the tactical value of withholding information; he gives us just enough to pique our interest and then pulls back, promising to deliver more when the time is right. The first installment of Harsh Realm promises plenty. [8 Oct 1999, p.71]

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.

If you're going to do a show about fantasy football, then do it. Go big, or go home. As constructed, The League will leave no one happy.

It tries to deliver a biting geopolitical satire about unconventional warfare with weapons that are depressingly conventional.

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]