The first two episodes demonstrate a firm grasp on both story and style. ... Cunningly provocative project.

ABC's latest single-camera comedy is utterly relatable. Even better, it's filled with the same warm yet witty, always smart and eccentric vibe as previous misfit-student faves "Square Pegs," "Popular" and "Malcolm in the Middle."

What a hoot. What a ridiculous, soap-operatic cutup of a series. But if you can stop giggling long enough, as I managed to--quite a feat, let me tell you--Harper's Island is also hugely enjoyable.

Entertaining newcomer full of energy, passion and baloney--the ideal summer diversion.

A not-bad start that promises to take Dex (and Dexter) in a slightly new and fresh direction.

Stamos' half-hour goes on to indulge such other TV trends as black lesbian confidantes, "BuzzFeed listicle" Web checks and the single camera's incessant progression of "witty" repartee jumping to quick-cut "gags" jumping to "awww" sentiment.

If you're looking for groundbreaking high art, you won't find it at a golf comedy. If you're after a little bit of solace, a tiny measure of happiness and feel-good uplift when we could all use it, "Stick" has the goods.

There's no sense of spontaneity, no sharp thrill of discovery (or fear). Gracepoint just plods along, right straight into the surging Pacific tide.

Amusing to watch, but not particularly scary. "Creepy" seems the better word.

It was a dark and stormy night--and a weird, fun, trippy one, too.

"Joe" has promise and heart but — at least just yet — not nearly enough of everything else.

Gardell and McCarthy are two of the more realistic-feeling, instantly appealing sitcom personalities in ages. They're enough to make it worth drudging through the sludge tonight's pilot considers comedy writing.

Mostly fascinating tales from all the presidents' men that occasionally need (sometimes badly) journalistic balance and perspective.

The supernatural action unfolds through special effects like some live-action cartoon, with maybe-aliens literally losing their heads. That matches their Fox Sunday night surroundings--but with sneaky bits of sentiment sprinkled in.

Bitter, brutal, depressing.

Fun, light, colorful and original.

You too may begin to see what this newcomer appears to be: a raucous, smart, gentle, imaginative and consistently funny comedy that scores early and often.

The first three episodes totally nail it.

You can't go wrong with Smith ("That '70s Show") or Lenehan, pros with impeccable comic timing, which leaves relative newcomers Bornheimer and Hayes. Thumbs-up here, too. Worst Week may be the best new comedy on network TV this season.

[A] stylish Gothic thriller that almost gives away a little too much Sunday. Otherwise, thumbs up.

Carell's Scott may emerge as one of those characters viewers dearly love to hate, but the guess here is that he's too over the top - much more so than Gervais' character was - to be appreciated in doses this large. He'd be more effective as a secondary character - think Danny DeVito's immortally despicable Louie DePalma in "Taxi." [24 Mar 2005, p.B33]

Uncompromisingly revelatory.

Authenticity ranges wide enough here to engage the whole family.

Pilkington's musings are sometimes amusing and always pointless, but the animation almost totally nullifies the first and intensifies the second.

Visually compelling with a nicely pensive music score--courtesy of Colin Stetson of Arcade Fire and Bon Iver--The First is otherwise plodding and padded.

Handsome production, excellent Long Island locale, and the first two episodes are best. But after that, "The Undoing" takes its slow, sweet time.

If you thought the "Real Housewives" of New York City, Atlanta and Orange County were outrageous, you haven't seen anything yet.

There's warmth and wit there, along with not a little magic.

Don't come for a fresh perspective or revisionist history or faithful recounting. Do come for the laughs. "Plumbers" probably gets that part right anyway. ... Amusing, inconsequential.

Like Walter White, she's the antihero we love to love--conflicted, intelligent, seductive, and human-all-too-human. Claire will be done in just eight episodes. A shame because she was just getting started. Claire's turn and she makes it count.

In general, pilot films fall into three modes -- promising, bearable and for imbeciles only. Moonlighting is definitely in the last class. [01 Mar 1985, p.20]

Boo Boo is critic-proof. Call it vulgar, call it schlock, call it a cup of flatulence, call it whatever you like. But John Waters called it first: America loves its trash culture, smells and all.

Solid opener that otherwise oversells the premise.

You’ve seen it before, read it before. Too bad Dying passed up an opportunity to tell it in an exciting, engaging new way.

Lively pilot, with plenty of pop--but you've seen it all before.

Banshee is baloney, but viewed as pure camp, there are some good action sequences and amusing moments.

Kinnear is solid, but his Keegan is a work in progress--both as human being and TV character.

A ninth season. Wow. In fact, a change of scenery has done Scrubs a world of good. The new students are funny. McGinley is great as always--so, too, is Turk (Donald Faison).

Money and cameos and nice locales don't make parodies work (nor does gun violence, which this newcomer jarringly has). ... Pallid, distant reflection of "Childrens Hospital." A whiff.

It's maybe easy, too easy, to write off "B Positive" as just another sitcom with a few setup jokes, along with the usual, predictable beats. But there's something else here, something potentially even good. Which would be? Call it comfort food, well-served.

Leonardo may not like what Starz has turned him into, but you probably won't mind this joy ride.

The Slap is a chance, and a worthy one, too.

Their [John Brownlow and co-writer Don Macpherson's] saga is so vividly shaded, even minor characters resonate.

It's world-building without the world having already been built in countless other movies, TV series and comic novels. Watch and you have the feeling that you are at the outset of a momentous journey. ... Spectacular.

My heart tells me that any show that revolves around an honest-to-goodness native of Commack deserves an A+. My head tells me this one deserves a C.

The Following is a bummer of significant proportions. Not that it's bad--it's not--but it's bleak, sordid, blood-spattered and creepy (though not necessarily always "creepy" in a good way, like "The Walking Dead").

Housewives fans will enjoy the show but might tire of seeing yet another cast of wealthy, self-indulgent women. It might be time to change it up.

There's not a whole lot of pleasure to be had in the waiting. June's ordeal has now started to feel like our ordeal. We need to have it resolved as much as she does. but like her, don't have any choice in the matter because we're invested too.

It's a smart and compelling drama, with some great acting and a real sense of place.

Like Hugh Laurie's irascible "House" title character, star Ellen Pompeo's newly minted Dr. Grey conveys such substance that you simply can't stop watching. [25 March 2005, p.B33]

With expectations low, this Exorcist surprises with appealing leads, and--a big bonus point--the return to TV of Geena Davis.

Well-produced and particularly well-acted newcomer with a lot of moving parts, potentially too many.

Entourage is clarifying a moral message--drugs will kill you, terrible behavior is terrible, and real friends are forever. It feels like a reassuring final season.

Fans will be happy, but you newbies have been warned--the vulgarity will blow your hair back, or right off.

Good performances, thoughtful series, but saddled with a grim inevitability.

It's all got the stirrings of something that should be funny, or wants to be funny, except that it's too often not - confoundedly, relentlessly, insistently not. [3 Jan 2015]

Mostly this show belongs to Harmon, once a key member of the "Law & Order" ensemble. She's likable and intriguing. That salvages an otherwise average cop show.

"Potential," in fact, is the key word. It's definitely here, but "2" may also need all eight episodes to realize it.

The Ex List--based on an Israeli hit ("Mythological Ex"), with whiffs of "How I Met Your Mother" and "My Name Is Earl" - is a flat-out great idea for a TV series. But Ruggiero (who's since left the show) needed a strong partner to reign in her worst impulses, like a running gag about shaved genitalia.

Eli Stone is fated to flounder.

A winner and best of all, fun.

Quinn radiates enough sincerity to make us keep reading this uneven book, just to see how it shapes up.

Mirren will get an Emmy nod for this because she's Mirren. She is a great actress, and she's certainly good here. A pity she'll get that nod for so cramped a story.

Fans of "The Sopranos" looking for a new Sunday-night must-see may find it here - though perhaps not fans driven to fits by that HBO hit's ambiguous conclusion.

Some genuine charm here and Buscemi; otherwise premise, story and that joke get old--fast.

Coin of the realm - pun intended - for TV games is familiarity, but that hardly confers an urgency to watch this one.

Mostly for the die-hard Seinfeld (and "Comedians") fan, these are more often about the guy who picks up the check than about his guests. But at their best, they're--what else?--funny.

Not unwatchable, but not particularly satisfying either.

Some of Mamet's dialogue is certifiably awful and some certifiably brilliant, and the dichotomy is breathtaking.

The cast in fact is terrific. (It also includes Norbert Leo Butz, Peter Gerety and AnnaSophia Robb.) A cramped, airless setting is the critical flaw here. Nothing comes to life--words, drama or most of all, characters.

It was... safe, reasonable, unembarrassing, uninspirational.

Shannen Doherty as a witch. Perfect. [6 Oct 1998, p.03]

Heaton nails the role because she's had so much practice at this, but "Carol's Second Act" does her — and the trope — one better, by ever-so-slightly inverting our Heaton expectations. ... Heaton is back in another "family" sitcom. As expected, a good one.

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

The Unusuals is not a good show; it is a messy, uneven, silly, inconsequential show.

For all its redundancy, however, the latest "CSI" is stronger than "Miami" and could eventually rival the original. Credit the two primary stars, Sinise and the city. [22 Sep 2004]

With the mix of bizarre cases and believably goofy characters, I found already I never wanted the show to end. It's great stuff working on three levels at once. [17 Sep 1992]

The New Normal needs to take a deep breath, get off the soapbox and get funny fast. The right elements--talented cast and showrunner--are already in place.

Umbrella looks, feels and sounds different [from other comic book TV adaptations]--music does much of the heavy lifting, and effectively so. It's a gorgeous-looking production that evokes another world, with both feet still firmly planted in this one.

Far, far, far and away NBC's best new pilot of the season and one of the best new shows of the season, on any network -- commercial or cable.

I don't like safe TV. I admire anyone who tries to experiment. But "Cop Rock" doesn't work. [25 Sep 1990]

The Goode Family is a highly imaginative and often amusing variation on that one note.

The series works best as a clinical dissection of how this happened both from a conceptual standpoint in terms of formulating the case and piecing the puzzle together, and from a practical one. ... The documentary feels perilously thin for such a rich subject. "Fear City" would benefit from being longer and more in depth than just three episodes.

The early hours are mostly placid, even docile. What must have come to life in the pages of the book struggles to find so much as a spark on the screen — difficult, admittedly, through the pall of smoke and shadows that tend to choke it. The characters are bland, too.

Despite the slightest everything's-up-to-date vibe, Cristela is really just another old-fashioned sitcom with roots that reach all the way back to the dawn of television, where shows neither offended nor scandalized.

A well-intentioned slog.

The main reason to give this version of "The 'Burbs'" a chance, of course, is the interplay between Palmer, Pell, Proksch and Julia Duffy ("Newhart") as the neighbors with a lot of time on their hands. They keep the energy high and the laughs coming.

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]

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

Not exactly satire, not exactly horror, BrainDead is not exactly much fun, either.

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 .

Mostly "The Morning Show" is a show in search of itself, uncertain of what to say about the #MeToo movement and workplace misconduct, or how to explore those real world parallels (Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer). This is because "The Morning Show" is often a mashup of verisimilitude with outright balderdashery.

As a viewer, you end up with a show that looks great, but ultimately trips up on the mechanics of basic storytelling.

Two nights implies this will be “epic,” but this is the anti-epic miniseries, where the subject gets smaller and smaller while his crimes get larger and larger. It’s instructional--just not emotionally engaging.

Series star Treat Williams ("Hair," "Prince of the City") is such a fine actor, with so much natural gravity, that he can transcend all but the hokiest writing. And as the opener develops, the writing actually starts to meet him halfway. [16 Sept 2002, p.B18]

Though tension builds to a taut shudder in Monday's Part 2, it all, unfortunately, falls apart in the finale on Thursday. Weber takes so much care in restraining his character from going over the edge too soon, that when he finally reaches that precipice on the rim of madness, he never dives in. It takes courage to go as far over the top as Nicholson did in Kubrick's "The Shining." But that's what's needed to make the crazed ending more than a cartoon. Too bad. Until then, "Stephen King's The Shining" almost got it right. [27 Apr 1997]

While beautiful to look at--some of this was filmed in Wading River, near Herod Point--Zelda can also feel like that TV biopic we’ve all seen before: The one that trudges dutifully along without adding much depth or subtlety in the process.

These four episodes are just about flawless — a cohesive and deeply moving picture of the final hours of two desperately lonely people. Much better still, Dodi is humanized rather than demonized.