By reattaching his misery to 9/11, and by reminding us that everyone around him still shares in the miseries of that day, Rescue Me has lit a new fire under both the man and his show.

The pilot, in which Yost liberally borrows Leonard’s trademark lean dialogue from "Fire in the Hole," has a swagger to it, and also a sly sense of humor....Without Leonard’s writing to directly adapt, the later episodes are a mixed bag.

Fishburne doesn't show up until halfway through the episode and mostly stays in the background once he does, letting the intellectual chess match between Grissom and DJK be the focus. And that feels right.

The humor provided by the new setting makes the show a bit more palatable than it was last season, but Nip/Tuck is still Nip/Tuck, for both good and ill.

Sutter has some interesting characters and ideas here, but the intensity isn't there yet.

Outside of McGee, the new season suggests that Rescue Me has gone as far as it can go as a comedy/drama hybrid. Almost all of the best scenes are the funny ones - or the ones that start dark, then turn funny, like Tommy brainstorming with Mike (Mike Lombardi) on the best way to euthanize his ailing mother.[12 June 2007, p.41]

It's not a finished product yet, and Poehler and the writers need to find more ways to distinguish Leslie from Michael Scott, but funny forgives an awful lot.

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

It's a solid little comedy, in which Scrubs fans can recognize the spirit of the show they loved, even if it's not Scrubs at its best.

The world of the warehouse, and the interplay with the characters as they deal with it, are amusing enough to mark Warehouse 13 as a very promising summer series--regardless of the name of the channel it's on.

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.

Has a fine, film noirish vibe and an irresistible mystery hook. [25 Sep 2002]

Overall, it feels more like the good old days than Grey's has in a long time.

"Kidnapped" plays out like a point-by-point criticism of everything "Vanished" gets wrong.

I doubt any gay person will see him- or herself represented on Queer as Folk with absolute realism and accuracy. It's basically a trashy soap opera with a veneer of social criticism a gay, sexually explicit "Melrose Place." But it's fun all the same addictive, suspenseful and sometimes moving, a populist glimpse of a subculture that pop culture rarely examines. [1 Dec 2000, p.F1]

While it's great that series like these can find a home on pay cable, it's a shame they feel the need to live up to the adult reputation most cable series have. "Soul Food" the series continues the unfortunate R-rated tradition of "Soul Food" the movie. [26 Jun 2000]

Though there isn't anything appreciably wrong with the third season, it's hard to fight the feeling that maybe Dexter is a concept that has reached its expiration date.

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 gave up on either one because they seemed tired or just annoying in their familiarity, now might be a good time to try a return visit.

"Reno 911!" isn't quite as rich and subtle as the best improvised comedy - the basic format becomes repetitive, and the performers sometimes drive the material into absurd directions when it might have been funnier to keep things smaller - but all in all, it's still a very funny show. [23 Jul 2003]

Jackie remains watchable because of Falco's no-nonsense, weary performance, and because of the off-kilter comic brilliance of Merritt Wever as Jackie's bubbly, spastic protégé Zoey.

If the world that Simon, Burns, Wright and company drop us into can be confusing at first (mirroring, as they intended, the confusion that Wright felt at the time), it's a fully-realized one that's both thousands of miles away (literally and figuratively) from the Baltimore of "The Wire" and one that will feel very familiar to anyone who spent a lot of time watching McNulty and Bunk drink at the train tracks.

The new edition delivers many of the same thrills and intelligent debate that made the original so exceptional. But the mere act of bringing it back creates problems the original never had to deal with.

It's still not more than disposable fluff, and I expect Vince to get his stardom back by season's end, but by making his career a metaphor for what the show had become, Entourage for the first time is more entertaining than Vince's life must be.

For the seven of you who remember "Andy Richter," Better Off Ted isn't quite as good--in part because star Jay Harrington isn't as innately funny as Richter (and he's mainly used as a straight man), and also because Fresco ditched the fantasy scenes that were often the most memorable part of the earlier series--but it's still a breath of fresh air in the present stale environment for TV comedy, as well as an accidentally timely show.

Ashes to Ashes has a cheekier energy that the original "Life on Mars," one that carries the show even when the police procedural stories are relatively bland.

As wonderfully played by Kenneth Branagh, Wallander is a fine addition to the tradition of PBS' "Mystery!"

Aliens is very much in the vein of previous nerd comedies like "Malcolm in the Middle" and "Freaks and Geeks," though it's not as explosively funny as either one of them.