Indeed, with his mugging and childlike innocence, Pinchot is sort of cute, especially if your age hasn't yet reached double digits. [25 Aug 1993, p.90]

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

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.

Treacly, by-the-numbers prime-time tear-jerker that even Brooklyn and a good cast can't elevate. And viewers won't mind in the least.

As a live-action adaptation of a hugely popular series, it's often jauntier and funnier than the root stock, the violence even more outlandish and cartoonish. Hardcore fans of the animé series may be disappointed by the liberties taken but a much wider audience — the one that never __watched animé — probably won't be. Flat-out entertaining.

Successful series have been built around less interesting fantasies, but the creators of That Was Then are almost as hapless as their hero. They saddled themselves with a casting nightmare. As the supposedly 16-year-old Travis, Bulliard looks closer to 26. And in the fake beard that's intended to make him look 30, he just looks silly. In fact, none of the cast members who have to play two ages is convincing. [27 Sept 2002, p.B39]

An amusing and not-bad game show; Bailey makes it bearable.

What comes out of Herman's head is the most imaginative, innovative comedy on TV since "Dream On". [5 Sep 1991]

The characters couldn't be more bland, and atmospheric Texas settings are ill-used.

Unlikeable characters fill the foreground, while an unfocused music track fills the background.

A disappointing adaptation that offers a new ending, when the old one worked just fine.

Gary is a throwback to a time when laugh tracks were provided by evidently demented studio audiences; when one-liners were stoked with double entendres about sexual functions; when sitcoms had a beat, pace and predictability so primitive that they engaged only the reptilian part of our brains. To some viewers, this may be comfort food. To others: Hell.

It’s not fully baked, not by a mile, because Baldwin has launched with friends, or at least show biz friends, who admire him as much as he admires them. ... Nobody’s neutral about him, and their neutrality will be tested as much as his. The show’s potential will rise or fall in those edgy encounters when they come, and they certainly should. That passion could ultimately be Sunday’s chief asset.

New Amsterdam isn't bad so much as it is wearily predictable. We've seen this all before, but we keep coming back for more.

Based on the 22 irredeemably painful minutes TV Land offered for review, this show is clunky, sodden, cliched, drab, bland and terribly (terribly) weary.

What ABC has tried to do is make something that will appeal to the sword-and-sandal crowd and the faith-based one. Predictably, neither will be pleased.... Prophets manages a few things well--notably the production values--and gives American TV audiences their first good, long look at the fine veteran British actor Ray Winstone. Newcomer Rix is promising, too.

A grim grind of a trip down that emblematic yellow road.

The cast is good, the fight scenes prolific, the overall lifting not heavy. Grailies among you could do worse. With lots of blood, some hooey, and even some history, this appears to be a decent--and watchable--period drama.

At least Emily proves she's got the chops to cast a shadow of her own.

The plotting had better up its game, too, with nearly every pilot “twist” being ridiculously predictable.

Satire administered with a Wiffle ball bat. A dull thud, where there should be a sting.

This feels like "funny" by focus group, one composed of cloistered network executives.

At least "Before" had the decency to come up with a different ending. It's the beginning and everything in between that's the problem.

The appealing cast valiantly tries to hack its way through the dense underbrush of jokes about frats and testicles and cannabis. But the harder they hack, the hackier it all becomes. Before long, the jungle has won. The show, and viewer, have lost.

Taken exercises its thriller muscles effectively, dashing between locations and speed-introducing people as props to help/harm Mills while he races the clock to save the day.

Just to keep our restaurant metaphors straight, this newcomer does a competent job of setting the table, but when the plates arrive, there’s nothing on them.

A not-bad techno-thriller that could go interesting places.

Maddening Here and Now can also be engaging and provocative. The frustration is in never quite knowing what it wants to be.

Producers clearly encourage some to-the-camera carping, but the overriding emotional tone is one of bonding and growth. And respect. In a reality competition!

We get some slightly bent soccer moms and dads debriefed by an impossibly cheery, cheesy, chummy game-show host. Showtime must have thought there would be great humor and irony in the mundane exchanges recorded here. But it miscalculated. Badly.

This new version looks like Franco moved on to something else long before he finished it.

There's a glimmer of hope here, and her name is Rebel Wilson. Now, the show needs to match her talents.

In spots, it's been turned into an antic Saturday morning cartoon. A shame.

A convoluted mess, despite great potential.

The show feels lived-in, making it all the more inviting to dwell there ourselves. [23 Sept 2003, p.B23]

Likable lead and cast, but Rel otherwise feels like a tepid, tame commercial network sitcom.

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

Formula procedural but at least a comfortable, easy-to-watch one, with a comfortable, easy-to-watch lead.

Unsupervised is a cheerier, less nihilistic "Beavis and Butt-head Lite," and not remotely as funny or trenchant.

Problem here is that Beers is yoking his specialty with something that is not his forte--reality competition. The result often feels forced and frivolous.

It's fabulous in every sense of the word.

A not nearly as bad (as you feared) cop procedural, plus toys that go boom.

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]

"Real Housewives" meets "Temptation Island" with an unexpected, and welcome, twist--Lohan is more or less the mature presence.

Though American tastes are mocked here, too, laughing at your own group doesn't necessarily excuse laughing at others.

Russian Dolls is so busily edited--is any shot longer than 3 seconds?--that there's no flavor of anything.

A competently made soap with some good actors and nicely staged musical numbers.

A messy newcomer with a "Twilight" saga vibe and "Twin Peaks" DNA.

The Narrative knot is further jumbled by all the head games Two plays on him and everyone else. Six is on shifting sand, and so, too, will you be.

The best thing about "Free Ride" is the lack of pressure to be about something. Trusting its talented cast to embody their own truths, it ambles and weaves, leaving space for the characters, even folks briefly bumped into, to nail a specific attitude or situation.

Private Practice is hugely disappointing, and in so many ways that a mere review can't even begin to do all the problems injustice.

It's hard to imagine anyone over the age of 15 being able to watch this series with a straight face after seeing Tarzan go sniffing through Midtown like a bloodhound, but maybe that's the audience the WB is after. As we said, Fimmel does have great pecs. [3 Oct 2003, p.B47]

Wild start, but a good-looking one.

Another insufferable nose-pressed-against-the-glass reality romp that says the rich are just like you and me--only rich, and exceedingly, tiresomely narcissistic.

Even actors with the amplitude of Watts and Crudup can’t pull Gypsy out of this induced coma. One reason is a hook--a genuinely interesting one--that refuses to come to life.

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

Conviction is so into overkill, it’s hard to tell what to take seriously.

This Bible probably won't offend anyone, but it's hard to imagine it will inspire anyone, either.

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

This is pretty tedious viewing.

Name aside, Cyber's pokey and old-fashioned, but the leads are the big draw.

Don't believe the critics who tell you "Hidden Palms" stinks after they watched only the first episode.... This is a seriously involving serious show. A show about something.

"Donnellys" creaks and sighs, moans and slumps, and ambles along like a world-weary cliche, unable or unwilling to lift its head above the humdrum banality to which it has been consigned.

S.W.A.T. had a chance to do something different, maybe even provocative. So far, the same old-same old.

Aduba's episode stands out among the first four episodes of "Solos," which collectively illustrate how difficult it is to pull off single-character drama on-screen.

A competent, connect-the-dots procedural that never offers much of a case for why a remake was needed.

Dim, dumb, dull, daffy and dippy, Discovery should know better.

"Crumbs" is surprisingly good.

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

These guys are so bland and their together time so contrived, it's more fun to watch the gears turn on the tired docusoap machine.

Creator Shonda Rhimes promised deeper, sharper medical stories this season to tether this show to the ground, and tonight Private Practice delivers those - even if the so-called "moral gray" area of each feels contrived.

Talky, tired, tame Crisis is a misfire.

"The Pentaverate" is simultaneously silly and pointless, and a welcome return to form for its star.

There are a few funny lines here and there. But too few of them, and too far in between, makes Friends From College that rare Netflix misfire.

ABC must be loco throwing Lopez to the critical wolves like this. [27 Mar 2002, p.B31]

The emotional reality is so true here that not only do they get away with an assortment of gags about condoms, massage parlors and other juvenile fixations, but they make them resonate endearingly.

A genial, old-fashioned--nay, prehistoric--family sitcom on the wrong network.

The show proceeds at gale force, demolishing logic, plot, meaning and (most of all) pleasure in its path.

Not great comedy, but hopefully the beginning of long overdue recovery process for a talented, troubled actor.

Yes, "The Loop's" a winner, although let us be the first to admit that the usual attributes associated with "winning" are probably stretched beyond all recognition in this context.

Cho has long been an acquired taste, and - while her fans will luxuriate in these 22 minutes--few newbies will acquire that tonight.

Not exactly the freshest premise for a comedy. But what Coach lacks in flash or originality, it makes up in steady execution. A winning cast and decent writing will do that. [28 Feb 1989, p.II-13]

Its rambling storytelling starts to reveal distinct shape in these people, their relationships and the show's quirky comic perspective [in the second episode].

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

Sure, Thursday's pilot is junk, but it's pretty, diligent junk, essentially The Whopper of action TV, heaped high with mayhem condiments.

A good portrait of a fallen man and the place he has fallen into. Promising--but also frustrating.

It's an upbeat, glass-half-full hour with some tough love from Tony, who also dispenses sound couples therapy advice. But the hour also feels facile, and rushed.

Too many moments feel false, overblown or contrived.

Love Boat strives for "Love American Style"-- and misses. [29 Sep 1977, p.47A]

A few emotional moments--most notably graveside ones--otherwise cool, self-aware and almost completely detached from the only reason this is on the air: Whitney Houston.

Even the most diehard of Western fans should keep on scrolling.

I did catch enough of "Hart of Dixie" to tell it's formula absurdity for the "princess" demographic of magical thinkers who now imagine being lifesaving doctors as well as rescued royals.

[Neil Patrick Harris was] hampered here by a format that might work better on daytime TV than at night, and better in the U.K. than here, and by gimmicks that seem more in step with the Velveeta spirit of "America's Got Talent," and by a show that's almost willfully aggravating, he may have met his match with Best Time Ever.

While it's nice to see a show that isn't cops/docs/lawyers, it'd be nicer if the show was better.

After this overheated effort to make Charlie interesting, or at least different, she's basically just another Carrie Mathison without the pills.

It's the anti-talk show, the talk show that isn't a talk show, the talk show from another planet--that would be Staten Island--talk show. And yet, in a weirdly unexpected way, it almost works--and potentially could work.

The multi-ethnic cast is appealing and their cyber notions are nice, but it's hard to tell where this curious concoction is headed. They're certainly loading the dice with paranormal possibilities. [6 Oct 2000, p.B51]

The strange alt-reality of Sean Saves the World, where a hundred bits of TV past--floating aimlessly in our memories--have coalesced into a cultural artifact that feels as antediluvian as a Walkman.