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.