I like her a lot, but the shaggy-dog nature of the storytelling... made the comedy miss about as often as it hit for me.

It's shot single-camera, mockumentary style like "Modern Family," but the set-ups aren't as outrageous and the writing, while funny, is not quite as sharp.

Lewis is a strong enough actor (again, see "Band of Brothers") that there are moments where he pulls together all these tics into a character who could be interesting, but too much time gets wasted on pedestrian mysteries to give him room to work.

The pieces shouldn't fit together--Earl's celestial presence with Grace's raging sex life, discussions of metaphysics with police procedural plots--but somehow they do.

For now, at least, the satirical elements aren't as sharp as other popular cartoons like "The Simpsons" or "King of the Hill" or even "Beavis & Butt-Head." [13 Aug 1997]

The mythology comes on hard and heavy in the first hour, but like ABC's blink-and-you-missed-it spring thriller "Zero Hour," it's ponderous yet silly.

Sanders' husband (Tate Donovan) and teenaged kids are each shielding their own secrets, uncovered by Carlisle and his crew--and covered up by them as well. Unfortunately, they're fairly pedestrian.

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.

True Blood looks terrific, especially whenever it has to depict a vampire in action, as they can move almost too fast for the naked eye (but not the high-def camera) to see. But unless the thought of vampire/human love makes your pulse quicken--or, even better, makes you wish you didn't have a pulse to quicken--most of it is not really worth seeing.

Like "Queer as Folk," The L Word is essentially a mediocre soap opera in soft-core porno drag. There's lots of hot, sweaty, half-naked bodies, but the heads attached spend so much time droning on and on and on about their mundane lives and loves that the sex scenes just feel like an intermission in between all the tepid girl-on-girl dialogue. [16 Jan 2004, p.55]

The Newsroom is as insufferable as ever.

These extended sojourns on the mountain, though beautifully shot, are self-serious to the point of spoof. That said, the performances--a supremely shaggy David Morse as Big Foster, a mercurial leader of the clan, Joe Anderson as Asa, who returned to the fold after a decade in the outside world, and Thomas M. Wright as troubled deputy Wade Houghton Jr., with a mysterious link to the Farrells--are strong throughout. And there's much in the material that resonates.

This is definitely promise ring material.

The whole space cowboy gimmick shouldn't work, but Whedon and co-creator Tim Minear have managed to create a world where space stations and men on horseback can plausibly co-exist. Little touches like deliberately old-fashioned dialogue - one character describes the bar fight as "just an honest brawl between folk" - help immensely. [19 Sept 2002]

The pilot offers a number of interesting swerves, and Anderson and Mulroney are always watchable, but Crisis shares sustainability issues with CBS' "Hostages."

New Amsterdam is essentially three shows in one: Amsterdam flashing back on all the exciting things he's done in the last 366 years; Amsterdam trying to find The One, and Amsterdam and partner Eva Marquez (Zuleikha Robinson) solving murders like the leads on some kind of supernaturally-charged "Law & Order" spin- off. But only the first of those shows is remotely interesting.

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]

Sometimes it seems that Darabont is more in thrall to the rise of the West Coast mob than to the story he's allegedly trying to tell.

"Family Guy" consistently falls short of excellence, thanks to its monotonously unvaried structure, which consists of a character describing an outrageous situation, followed by a clip depicting that same situation. [28 Apr 2005]

There's nothing annoying about it, but there's also nothing memorable.

Yes, this is "Raising Hope" for the carpaccio crowd, but like that gone-but-not-forgetten Fox sitcom set in the no-frills aisle, the potential for schmaltziness is more than balanced by the show's oddball sensibilities.

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.

The journey from Point A to Point B is both surprising and funny in spots, thanks to Bornheimer's likable doofus vibe and the usual waves of contempt coming from Kurtwood Smith (last seen as Red on "That '70s Show") as his prospective father-in-law.

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.

The pilot (only the first hour was sent for review) is well made with strong leads and several intriguing hooks. Almost Human is almost there.

The pilot is carried on Kinnear's rascally charm and is heavy on quirk.

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.

NBC's new miniseries The Slap is a heavy-handed, button-pushing, endlessly irritating drama about a family that slowly unravels after a man slaps another's obnoxious child at a family party.