Dean's goofy legal maneuverings--we're talking one step up from Mr. Brady's whiplash-busting briefcase toss--may strain the premise eventually, but after last season's wretched record for comedies, a sitcom that consistently amuses is worthy of acquittal.

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.

Pacing is a problem for most pilots--so many characters to introduce, meaningful stakes to establish--but Quantico, from "Gossip Girl" producer Joshua Safran, does this effortlessly, with at least one deadly effective twist you won't see coming. Just don't come looking for subtlety.

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.

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.

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."

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.

The dysfunctional relationship between sensible Kermit and the perennial diva Miss Piggy drives the show, and there is plenty of inside Hollywood humor, but its most delightful subplot is with Fozzie Bear, who is experimenting with inter-species dating.

It's relatively engaging and slickly produced, with effective visuals showcasing Brian's new talents, but the side effect of this show may be fatal blandness.

The leads are fine, but the amount of disbelief that must be suspended for an anonymous woman with hinky body art to become an adjunct FBI agent beggars belief.

While these standalone plots could descend into sketches, they don't--the writing is sharp and relatable, and the cast, particularly Colin Hanks and Zoe Lister Jones as new parents, bring their standard-fare roles to life.

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.

Sutter's taste for chewy dialogue works well ("Make this a sight for deep memory," instructs Baron Ventris (Brian F. O'Byrne) before a slaughter, and his minions do). But Brattle and his band of rebels are frustratingly one-dimensional; the only character who comes to life is Stephen Moyer's Milus Corbett, the Baron's scheming chamberlain.

The marquee interviews, taken as a whole, were Colbert's weak point--the Bush interview went longer in reality and felt rushed when edited. And Colbert's talk with George Clooney just fell flat.... What did work was the overall vibe--enthusiastic, encompassing, high-energy and with healthy dose of quirk.

Public Morals is engaging enough, with a jazzy pace, assured direction and a number of fine performances.

There's a minimum of gore--these walkers are slow and more intact at this stage--though there are a few zombie fake-outs. But instead of building tension these sequences merely underscore the tedium.

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]

The storytelling itself is agile, even with frequent digressions into the finer points of sociophysical architecture and the pitfalls of "nebulous public areas."

7 Days in Hell is flush with over-the-top raunch and absurdist asides, but there's a shaggy charm about this production.

With MTV's Scream, anyone who has enjoyed the original is bound to be disappointed here.

As with many a Patterson thriller, the breathless pace and spine-tingling what-ifs make it easy to get caught up despite your well-founded reservations.

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.

Johnson surprises with hints of vulnerability behind that mega-watt smile. The show is also very funny.

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

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

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

Because of the episodic nature of the reenactments, and abetted by merely competent acting and bland writing, they fail to gain momentum. This lack of urgency in the production is ironically heightened by a heavy-handed percussive score that never lets up.