Camping does have a good, energetic cast but they too never quite find their groove as fish-out-of-water in this would-be fish-out-of-water farce. Like Dunham and Konner, they all seem like they'd rather be someplace else--anyplace else would do.

An inert, talky bore.

A weepy wannabe from the "This Is Us" playbook that doesn't build much of a case for caring about the characters, much less weeping over them.

"Almost Family" is also a snooze. It sleepwalks past the issues it purports to explore, as well as the unethical, and most likely criminal, behavior involved. ... So "Almost Family" made Hutton's Bechley an almost-loveable rogue, and his offspring almost-unbothered by the almost crime he perpetrated against them and countless others. No "almost" about that. It's flat-out creepy.

This passionless, pallid reboot is missing the key element that made the first one--tacky and tawdry as it was--succeed: Nimoy himself.

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

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.

James is good in this; otherwise dumb … and dumber.

A great historical story gets wasted in this endurance test for viewers.

"Upload" is a misfire for the great Greg Daniels, a high-concept series that plays like a bad sitcom.

It's a monumental bore. ... Meanwhile, in absence of plot, the cast (sad to say, a fine one) is left to chew the scenery. And chew away they do.

A mostly superficial fast-cut of Schumer's marriage, pregnancy and life on the road that never pauses to ask, why is she subjecting herself to this?

Wan, worn, predictable, "Mr. Mayor" feels like a misfire in the early episodes.

Baffling, dull Barry is a bore, and so is the series named for him.

It's rather painful to report that the series itself is just not very good, playing like an infomercial without any sort of deeper engagement with the subjects at hand.

[Kit Harington's] a narcotized Jon Snow in a narcoleptic of a miniseries that nods off at times, and seems maddeningly unaware that viewers will be induced to do the same thing. ... A gluepot of a miniseries with good actors and no pulse.

It's a bland allegorical satire built on an obvious point that unfolds in outer space where days (or nights) never end, and the passengers are irritating, and the ship is girdled by stiffs and human excreta. ... Lost in space, and on-screen, too.

Too rushed, too unfunny, with hardly any music. At least Hall promises better times ahead.

Because Rudd's Herschkopf is so reliably repugnant and Ferrell's Marty so utterly hopeless, as a viewer you eventually feel trapped as well. There's no way out, no exit, just eight long hours spent with two famous actors who seem to know nothing of the people they're supposed to be.

Bland, harmless, forgettable.

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.

American Woman's timing may be the only thing right here. All else is wan, muddled, tired and bland.

Craven and corrupt, studios did ruin lives and stoke racism. But a seven-hour Velveeta-smothered corrective, along with a few nice performances and some genuinely awful ones (discretion is indeed the better part of valor on this last point, by the way)? Get me rewrite, kid. STAT. Overindulgent, overwrought, overdone.

It becomes a challenge to endure a show that jerks its audience around this much, and cannot decide whether it wants to be tabloid-level trashy television with horror leanings, a serious depiction of human failings, an expose of the dark side of the adoption world, the story of a marriage falling apart, or something else.

Interesting idea, otherwise deadly dull.

Mostly lame, but also good-natured, with an amusing finale.

Moselle’s camera lingers on them lovingly — but nobody thought to give these characters much in the way of real personalities.

It's all about the writing, in this case, and the utter lack of depth, or inner life, or suggestion that anything of particular interest might be happening here.

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 Alec Baldwin Show is about Alec Baldwin. The guests are props for his observations and worldviews, or foils for stories about his brilliant career. ... Soporific.

A viewing of the first two episodes proves to be quite the chore. We're introduced to one-dimensional characters, presented a mystery that the characters themselves barely seem to be interested in pursuing, and we're asked to just sit there and put up with it. It can be rather excruciating.

A 2+2=4 cop show with no surprises but plenty of Wolf touches.

The new Roseanne looks like it wants to fight the 2016 election all over again. That could be a miscalculation because viewers--along with the rest of the electorate--are exhausted.

Jersey Shore is appalling, which is mostly its appeal, but it can also be funny, irreverent and breezily dimwitted--which is the rest of the appeal.

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.

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

Narration clunkily tries to fill the narrative void. But it's blandly delivered.

Absent a compelling core romance, and absent a passably beast-like beast, you're left with a sodden police procedural.

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.

The oldest trope in the TV kingdom dies hard, and in fact dies not at all on Chicago PD, the latest from "Law & Order" creator Dick Wolf, who sleepwalks through this show, or at least doesn't bother to wake up long enough to rewrite any of the rules he's established over the past 30 years.

A thorough whitewashing.

You have a life--live it, and don't watch this.

The show is bad, the star a bit sad, his shtick as old as a rock.

Dreadful. Or to use a more manly phrase, aaarrgggh, awful.

What is missing here is heart, drama, and - most inexcusably - horror.

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]

Someone must believe the allure of "CSI" lies in its "look" - Cold Case also offers time-tripping flashbacks blending the past incident into present time - along with the behavioral "cool" of its central character. But even when William Petersen plays reserved, his "CSI" cop seems to be seething at his core. That suppressed fire makes him worth watching. Morris is barely an ember.

Determinedly irreverent and politically incorrect, but so obvious in its targets and so unoriginal in its barbs that it ends up being mostly an ode to its own crudity. [29 Apr 2005]

Where "Batman" played it straight, and was therefore kinky, Scorpion smugly thinks it's cute, and therefore isn't. Its cops are Keystone, its star is personality-free and its plot progressions are dippy-dumb. But Lintel's poppin' chest is always well-lit, gunfire is frequent and spectacular explosions keep topping themselves. [4 Jan 2001, p.B31]

It's bland, tired, listless, and if the show isn't having much fun, how can it expect viewers to?

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]

Call Girl is a dreary London day. A pass.

Eli Stone is fated to flounder.

There's certainly comedy to be found in these basic situations, but not in "Lucky Louie's" confounding approach or stilted presentation.

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]

This show is slickly packaged and unchallengingly trite in its slavish reality-show construction.

The pilot was so uneven that the whole affair nearly veers into "Reefer Madness" territory--the kind of over-the-top cautionary fable that subverts honorable intentions through hysteria or cliche. Despite its pedigree, Teenager doesn't appear to have ever stepped inside a high school, either.

There's no reason to pile on here, but this show needed many more months of gestation before getting thrown to the wolves.

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]

This wanna-be's as dumb as dirt, and, as a consequence, even makes Hollywood seem more toxic than it probably is.

Despite the storylines' incessant emotional and psychological delvings, the result is an inert if not annoying muddle among unpleasantly profane people whose prospective salvation isn't worth wading toward.

All this feels dutiful and rote - the CliffsNotes version.

A real loser. [23 Aug 1990]

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

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

Carpoolers is like a flimsy "Saturday Night Live" skit pounded home and running on beyond endurance. Actors sputter their lines, dither and whimper like some 1950s sitcom.

A second-rate knockoff of what's not quite a first-rate fabrication itself.

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

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]

Kind of silly. [11 May 1995]

Too many moments feel false, overblown or contrived.

A sweet, gentle, good-natured trifle that is (nonetheless) surprisingly airless and only rarely funny, if that.

Walk out on academic underemployment, say goodbye to nosy neighbors and move to a better series. [24 Sept 1993, p.95]

All the eyeliner in the world can't make Cleve intriguing.

TBS' entry only lacks "Sex and the City's" craft in writing, characterizations, plot, production and wit.

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

Some amusing bits, but for every one of those, there are 10 misfires.

What's missing here, besides laughs? Chemistry.

As the woebegone divorcee with an antic streak and a full-blown need to get down, Cox is not believable.

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

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

Unadulterated rubbish, and exactly what fans expect. Bravo, Starz.

S&D&R&R don’t bring me anything but down.

The opposite of greatness. Specifically, "Space Force" is a five-hour bloat full of temporizing dialogue, a few-too-many gags relating to gastrointestinal malfunctions, and a CGI chimp and dog who deserved better. ... Yeah, bad. Long bad too.

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.

Blunt Talk aspires to "Network's" kinetically brilliant madness. It arrives a limp and muddled mess.

Any series that calls itself Wicked City is pretty much asking for ridicule ("Sin City" already taken?), but to then go ahead and stuff the sausage with grade A baloney? That, my friends, is a demand.

Because Kominsky is so blue and so tin-eared, when it tries to draw close to anything resembling real human emotion, it emotionally founders then sinks without a trace. ... Creaky and leaky.

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.

Sausage factoryline network sitcoms like this one — most of them, really — are weirdly out of step with the moment, like the obnoxious guest at some party who drinks too much and tells bad jokes before learning that he's not at a "party" but at a wake. ... Lamentable second act.

If you last the entire pilot, and your head doesn’t hurt, you’re a sturdier viewer than I.

Knight Rider is a disaster, a remake so deliriously and delectably bad that you have to watch just to tell your grandchildren that you were there.

it's a clanking, clattering collection of collagenous clinkers--of dialogue so inept, of acting performances so preposterous, of plot points so cliched that the only question worth posing is why someone of Weaver's stature would be caught anywhere near a turkey like this.

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

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

Yup, pretty awful.

It's all very exhausting. This is a terrible show. Avoid it at all costs.