The new show is very violent, in bursts, in between all the poetry and music. I don't know why, but violence bothers me less when its mixed with lyrical scripts like in "A Man Called Hawk." It's like Shakespeare on TV. ... Any script becomes Shakespeare when Brooks gets his vocal cords around it; pearly words float out of the TV. [27 Jan 1989]

I was resistant to "life as we know it" at first, but it won me over (or wore me down). What seems prurience for prurience's sake turns out to be a good bit richer, kind of like "My So- Called Sex Life." [7 Oct 2004]

Yes, Outlander can occasionally be a bit much for those not already enamored of its romance-novel leanings. (I plead guilty.) But for those open to textured historical sweep and/or time travel what-ifs (guilty on both counts), it's easy to lose yourself in this gritty production's pungent sense of place, character and dilemma.

Fascinating and deeply troubling.

Get past the genuine awfulness of this--and it is awful--and a strange melancholy begins to settle in.

A beauty that requires time and patience, but at least strongly hints at a payoff that will reward both.

Hall lacks Walken's natural aura of strangeness, and he looks a little too well-fed for a guy who has been vegetating for half a decade. But he does manage to make Smith credible and sympathetic. [14 June 2002, p.B51]

The good news is that The Second One often is worse (in a good way) and does boast at least one viral YouTube clip, starring the head of the Statue of Liberty. (Poor Lady Liberty.) But The Second One is also more predictable, silly and self-conscious of the legacy.... For "Sharknado" fans: B- For viewers with highly refined tastes--or any taste--and sharks: F+

Efron and Grylls--who manages to be personable in all his series, even when he's rappelling down an ice cliff in the Antarctic while being pursued by a mob of angry emperor penguins--do, in fact, make a good team, and a fun one to hang out with for an hour, too.

Wonderful. ... It is a realistic drama, the sort of thing you might see occasionally on experimental "American Playhouses" on public TV. But nobody does realistic drama on commercial TV today. [1 May 1990]

What may bring even jaded viewers back to "Christy" is Tyne Daly's striking characterization of Alice Henderson, the kind but formidable Quaker who serves as the heroine's mentor. [3 Apr 1994]

It's just super, a triumph of programme-making that even Alistair Cooke himself with his famous British overstatement can't exaggerate. [28 Mar 1991]

This fantasy adventure is actually tolerable now for adults who found ABC's May "Dinotopia" miniseries such an endless festival of special effects with little redeeming dramatic value. [28 Nov 2002]

The Lottery, with otherwise sage setup and promising performances, merits its own shot at something great.

Nice to finally see a show nailing what it wants to be and say, in continually discerning work from Passmore, Szostak and series creator Sean Jablonski.

With "Satisfaction" an hour later proving even USA now knows what adult TV can really be, Rush doesn't deliver one.

You're the Worst exudes some charm (Cash is rich indeed) but can't keep from overstepping, either. It's saved by relationship detail and human vulnerability that "Married" utterly misses.

Married, in particular, is one-note with character tone: clueless people acting heedlessly.

Not worth sitting through for the scenery when you can switch to Travel Channel.

Consider Seed the cutoffs and flip-flops of the comedy dress code. Acceptable in summer. But just barely.

The horror is carefully and strategically placed; one mustn't have too much of a good thing, after all.... So settle in. You will be grossed out.

Better, richer, more compelling than season one.

[The Canadian comedy all-stars] give it good vibes. But the scripts, despite mad moments of whimsy, can't keep pace with the cast's comic timing and tone.

All charm and smarts, the best new NBC comedy in a long time. A winner.

Finding Carter isn't some teen show. It's a stellar drama.

The opener is absolutely superlative--a thing of real beauty, even elegance.... Berry delivers a performance that's surprisingly layered and nuanced.

Successfully cross-breeding "Three's Company" and "Full House" may be achievement enough to earn the show's creators a Nobel Prize in genetics, but the audience for a family sex farce may be limited. ... Misgivings about the sexual content aside, "8 Simple Rules" is, indeed, one of the better sitcom prospects of the 2002-03 season. The writing is uneven, but Ritter is a rarity, an actor who doesn't need funny things to say because he can say things funny. [17 Sep 2002]

The actors hit that soap sweet-spot between honest reality and lurid theatricality under direction from pros like Michael Apted and Catherine Hardwicke.

Some excellent special effects are in Monday night's episode, but nothing particularly shocking because it's become abundantly clear by now that The Dome can do any damn thing The Dome--or the writers--want.

A baffling, beautiful, maddening, provocative puzzle.

Disney should be sent to detention for passing off such aural plasticity [laugh track], unfairly fouling the repute of the live-audience sitcom. But the rest of Girl Meets World does its job of bringing tween-based family viewing into the 2010s.

What this show isn't: fresh, witty or even well constructed.

The pilot is itself uneven, with the go-for-bonkers impudence of a live-action "Family Guy." But without it, Mystery Girls might be just another ABC Family-com for viewers who have aged out of Disney Channel and silly situations with sentimental topping for studio audience uproar.

This is a show that can't escape the shackles of that old mismatched-buddy-cop formula, even if one of them does happen to drive a cab.

It's not particularly funny, but it does have style and energy. [26 Feb 2002]

It's not so stylish or energetic anymore, and it's still not particularly funny. ... The problem isn't just rim-shot jokes, though. It's the whole conception of this comedy's situation, which is riddled with illogic and overstocked with annoying characters. [15 Apr 2003]

Tonight's preview/pilot can get so intoxicated with hip-hop scratching - jump-cuts, slo-mo, video backtracking - that it forgets to remember style best serves substance. [14 Apr 2003]

Content is the much bigger issue here. In the pilot, Tyrant at times comes perilously close to embracing derogatory media stereotypes of Arabs.

Colorfully drawn. But all inside the lines.

Passable summer thriller with some decent (for TV) action sequences. The plot? You've been there, done that.

Headaches will be induced just in trying to unravel the plot mess Bon Temps finds itself in. At least this will be the last headache.

Maybe the Thursday pilot's portentous whispers in candle-lighted spaces will seem less pretentious and more profound as Dominion moves past initial exposition from a cast trying not to sound like they're from all over the planet.

Despite the predictable conclusion, "Stargate SG-1," leaves many character threads dangling tantalizingly. If you aren't careful, this series could definitely hook you. [27 Jul 1997]

At first glance in the two-hour pilot, none of the actors comes close to the robust presence of "SG-1" star Richard Dean Anderson, while the show relies on the technology and special effects that can send noncultists fleeing. (Good luck trying to fathom the setup, too, if you're not already "Stargate"-versed.) [11 Jul 2004]

As episodes unfold, the relationships resonate, and the characters run deeper.

An energetic attempt ... What there isn't, unfortunately, is enough character development to make you care about anybody or anything. [1 Jan 1998]

Freddy, the series, is for the mature mind. Not the 9-year-old mind, but the 11-year-old mind. ... It's not funny, but ghastly, the sickest, most violent, blood-spurting TV imaginable. [6 Oct 1988]

Good, cleanly told newcomer that can be a bit pokey.

It's not as remarkable as [the previous versions], but it beats most of the weekly crime dramas running opposite it this week. [25 Jan 2004]

The opening episode--already posted online--is a bit sluggish, but Power gets better in subsequent episodes. Starz, and Fitty, appear to have a winner.

If you loved last season, there's nothing so far to indicate you won't like the second just as much.

Make a list of sitcom cliche shtick, and you'd find it all here. The eye-bulging hard-trying line sell. The ba-dum-bum punch line rhythm. The motormouth babbling to signify "wackiness." The louder- the-better sense of comedy. Even the family visit where members enter a room precisely a peculiar eight paces apart so each has time for an entrance "joke." [27 Feb 2003, p.B31]

Respectable, incomplete survey (on TV) Thursday night, but future installments look better.

An oddity with additional oddness in the form of Malkovich. But as summer diversions go, this looks to be a good one.

[An] entertaining, engaging start.

Amusing, dumb, silly--exactly what you'd expect.

The herky-jerky camera work whenever it appears to shake barns or gobble up an off-road vehicle only calls attention to the fact that this is a cheaper production. And the human cast gathered around Gross is sorely lacking in the quirkiness that made the original ensemble so much fun. The new gang wouldn't be out of place in a Gap commercial. And yet ... there is something about the kitschy graboid and the hydra-like cluster of smaller worms that erupt from its mouth that's both laughably ludicrous and primordially unnerving. [27 Mar 2003, p.B35]

The cast succeeds, and in the end, so does Heart.

Pulp hooey with a comic book vitality and earnestness that manages to keep it (usually) on track.

Tonight's first episode is highly recommended for Ed Begley Jr. fans who may have wondered what Dr. Victor Ehrlich has been doing since "St. Elsewhere." [20 Aug 1990, p.9]

Is there anything great here? No. Is it goofy fun? Yes.

Nice to look at, good performances, but ultimately a snooze.

This John Logan creation promises an intriguing summer pastime, for an eight-week run anyway.

The pairing might have worked, if only they weren't saddled with trite dialogue. ("Am I disturbing you?" someone says to cafe owner Whoopi: "Too late, I'm already disturbed.") And it might have worked if the show had more resembled a "small" production of the kind that some pay-cable services specialize in instead of an assembly-line, go-for-the-cheap-shot sitcom. [30 Mar 1990, p.II-5]

The writers try to limn the blue-collar vs. white-collar struggle that gave the movie its bite, but end up sounding mushy and sentimental. [16 Apr 1990, p.11]

24, in other words, is still thankfully 24.

Uncle Buck is sometimes funny like a poke in the eye. It's crude and vulgar. The jokes are obvious, the situations cliched, the characters obnoxious. Would you believe a lecherous insurance agent named Doreen Douche? [10 Sept 1990, p.9]

Louie very much remains Louie in the best sense.

For this series to wear well, the forces of evil have to locate some clear motivation. Revolutionary ideology, world domination, pure greed - almost anything would be better than the explanation offered by next week's chief villain, who clings to her missile launcher and declares, "This is what I am." [12 Jan 1997, p.03]

The pair has recast the concept and their chemistry into a suburban setting that feels fresher and friendlier, truly finding its footing at 10:30 with Sloane (and those gnomes).

As expected, the transition from big screen to small doesn't exactly work. What this Bad Teacher really needed to do was outsmart the source material--make this version more clever, or sharper, or funnier, or (above all) make it for adults.

Black Box creates compelling people while smartly pondering identity, relationships, connection--it doesn't need the amped-up atmosphere.

In two unbearably long hours, the film says nothing that wasn't said first, or better, 21 years ago. And where the original had a palpable air of menace, a mood hot and sticky with fear, the TV sequel is as fast-moving as a stagnant pond. [4 Mar 1988, p.7]

And I like programs which show women as competent, caring, intelligent individuals. Young girls who start watching this program Saturday night are more fortunate than those in the 1970s who grew up with "Charlie's Angels" as role models. [9 Sept 1988, p.13]

There's a vibrancy here, and a clarity, that we haven't seen in network sitcoms in ages. The way ABC's "Lost" reconfigured dramatic storytelling, Showtime's Barbershop so invigorates the humor format that we hate to call it a sitcom. It's entirely its own animal. And that's evolution of a kind everyone can get behind. [12 Aug 2005, p.]

The show can be messy and confusing--a headlong rush to who-knows- where-or-why at times. But those clones keep it grounded.

Even the baby talk offers more variety than you'd think, with Danza frequently encountering friends with their own peculiar outlooks on toddler life (Roscoe Lee Browne voices a stuffy baby-actor in the second show). [8 Mar 1991, p.103]

The time allotted isn't long enough to truly convey the touchstones a sci-fi devotee might demand. But with so much skated through, it's plenty to confuse a newbie.

This hour is focused as much on standup craft as sitcom-building, and fails to put the comics' genre-expanding series concepts into the context of their times.

Falco is very good, always is, but her show has gotten tired.

The film's essential weirdness felt real. The TV series' weirdness is more often just comical (or disgusting. One word: Spiders.)

This still very much feels like a journey worth taking if only because--in the process--Hamm deftly continues to locate some heroic facet in TV's reigning anti-hero.

Judge has a keen eye for the absurdities of human behavior and speech, but he's not the kind of guy to waste that on subtle inside jokes or wordplay. He's not someone to waste it on farce, either: Silicon Valley also happens to be sly and smart.

Still TV's best--dive in while the water's warm.

This is a thoughtful, dutiful historic drama filled with all the requisite period details and British accents, too. But what's missing here, glaringly so, are passion and sweep .

If only the series works its way toward more effective show than tell, Las Vegas might find itself with a winning hand.

The cast feels solid, and likable, jelling swiftly.... Then comes that final distasteful sex gag. Let's pray it's just pilot-itis.

What's wrong here are some of the same elements that have made the 2013-14 network comedy crop one of the weakest in memory--not enough laughs, not enough of a show that feels like it has something interesting to say (and wants to say it).

We ultimately get to spend time with Henson's judges hashing it out. That brings insight into what makes things work, into creature logic, proportions, movement, performance facilitation, and letting the creation "emote through its environment." We don't just watch art being made, we come to understand the process.

[A] strongly acted thriller, which seems to add another intense dimension weekly.

Crisis ultimately gets its priorities straight by giving viewers a reason to care--about the characters, outcome and mystery.

Sly as "The Larry Sanders Show," keener than "Fat Actress," more sympathetic than "Curb Your Enthusiasm," this new half-hour comedy hits the bull's-eye in every direction. It's funny, sad, smart and immensely appealing. [5 June 2005, p.11]

Yes, this is all very familiar--Sundance's "The Returned" was better, by the way--but there are still solid hints of an engaging series.

This entire series will rise (or tumble to oblivion) on the shoulders of their characters, and on whatever chemistry they create. First impressions are that it will indeed rise.

Basic yet beautiful, Cosmos appears to be a winner.

Overtones of "Rescue Me," absent the wit and bite.

There's no authentic life to Saint George beyond the setup/joke/laugh formula and its witless, gamy punchlines.

Disturbing. Magnetic. Hold your breath. Watch.