As indictments go, Going Clear is relentless and effective. But fair and balanced? That's another question--or maybe that's an issue.

This series boasts some reasonably high production values, certainly for Comedy Central, with lots of energy, and a sense that it knows where it's going and how to get there. But the tone is so relentlessly mean-spirited, the guys so unlikable, their predicament so pathetic that Big Time deflates before your very eyes.

Corden clearly appears to have the goods.... Most importantly, he has an obvious ability to perform bits that'll hold up in the cold light of dawn, or more specifically on the Internet.

At least in the first three episodes provided for review, what the Kesslers and Zelman don't seem to quite realize is how much of a narcotic this setting actually turns out to be. The story is also often languid to the point of stationary.

All very much and happily remains the same--and unless you are an absolute die-hard insane fan who will find something to complain about here ... there really isn't all that much to complain about whatsoever.

Liv is more goth than zomb, more punk than spunk. She's also as appealing as anyone who eats human brains for a living could possibly be. Her supporting cast is good, too.

One Big Happy is just... conventional.

The trash meter soars when [Elizabeth Hurley's] on-screen, then sags when she's off. And there's just too much sag here.

As a character with a sartorial preference for canary yellow, Kemper's Schmidt comes into focus intensely and immediately. She pops off the screen, and pleasingly so. Her series, less so.

This is often a stirring and deeply felt portrait of people in an extended state of crisis.

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

Shore has written this adroitly enough and Winters and Duhamel are two good and seasoned actors who easily locate what's most endearing, or at least what's most amusing about their respective characters.

It feels observed, rather than lived in. Enacted, rather than unfolding.

Forte does seem to be having a good, slovenly time, but after a while, the whole affair starts to feel a bit wanton and self-indulgent.

Can a bad person become a good president? The answer may be self-evident--or maybe not. Nevertheless, therein lies a compelling new season. We may still have a lot more to learn about Frank Underwood after all.

Sex Box is bad. It's also hackneyed, dull, derivative and surprisingly windy.

[Producer John] Maggio has discovered the unfamiliar in something some of us thought was already familiar, and by doing so, does help dispel embedded stereotypes while enriching an already rich heritage.

Their [Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon's] Odd Couple feels like the kind of time-filling time killer that's chasing viewers to other options.

This hour isn't perfectly paced, but its segues usually wind their way somewhere smart. O'Donnell remains a master of comic timing and tenor, holding the stage through the perils of fame, helicopter mothering, circumcision, women who don't "look gay," doctors lacking bedside manners, the persistence of childhood faith training and more.

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

Saul is lighter and brighter than "Bad," and--particularly with Sunday's launch--often very funny.

The Jinx does channel that we're-all-on-this-ride-together thrill that hooked so many listeners of last fall's NPR podcast, "Serial," about a murder of a Maryland teen. This may be a high-gloss treatment that utilizes all the tricks of the TV trade, including dramatic re-creations, and a way-over-baked credit sequence, but that sense of unfolding discovery remains.

Allegiance is a curious duck, indeed. Smart and sophisticated certainly, but -- occasionally--a bit dim-bulbed and hokey, too.

Fresh Off the Boat is charming, convivial, even--gasp--at times cute.

This remains a superior TV drama.

It's a cut above boilerplate, with good production values and decent performances.

The stories are intricate enough to hold attention, but not too intricate. The action, which always supersedes the chatter, is the thing, and here it's something to see indeed.

Nightwatch isn't merely well produced, with clean, striking visuals and a sharp clarity in which even shadows seem to come into focus, but it's also alive with the sounds of a beautiful, vital and (most often in the dead of the night) dangerous city.

After a rough start, Backstrom settles into an obvious, and comfortable, procedural rhythm.

Wilmore’s approach was pointed (as pointed as a sharp stick) and often funny. Most of all, he brought a perspective to late-night TV--as the basis for entire nightly comedy show--that's been missing from late-night TV for just about as long as late-night TV has been around.

Bassett refuses to cast blame for the troubles, and we're left with a portrait that has plenty of love--just not a whole lot of insight or edge.

Justified remains as good as ever--and as tautly written, acted and directed, and deeply, completely pleasurable as the fifth season, and the one before that and... all of the other seasons, too, now that I think of it.

Intelligent adaptation absent the dark humor, satire--or horror--of the original.

Initial indications are good--the second season of Broad City may even exceed the first.

The result is something refreshingly new, and bafflingly different.

It's almost a shrug of an opener, a bit diffident, a bit unfocused (not unlike Brett, in his less lucid moments). But Togetherness does gets better, and funnier.

Girls is as Girls always was--sharply observed, intensely self-aware and very funny.

Episodes remains funny.... Mangan and Greig, whose characters remain perfectly, hilariously, beset by that terrible Hollywood contagion: Self-loathing co-mingled with self-preservation.

Lies very much remains a taste acquired--inconsistent with a tone that's jagged and only intermittently funny.

It gets stranger, or--depending on your definition of justice--it gets better.

It's as if Empire had too many antecedents, and--failing to decide upon one--embraced them all. The result is an interesting idea that can't quite figure out what that idea actually is--or where it should go from here.

To make Agent Carter work, and work well, Atwell and ABC knew she needed to be a relatable human first, and a subsidiary member of the populous Marvel universe second. Those priorities are straightened out efficiently on Tuesday's episode.

TV's pre-eminent people-watching pleasure.

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]

Good-looking--also lethargic, languid, listless and a little bit lifeless--at least in the early going.

Sontag, simply put, was a very interesting person, who fully inhabited some interesting times--which this film captures. But as to that genuine, lasting impact? Who knows: Regarding is so busy trying to capture this busy life, that it never gets around to an answer.

The overall production--good, mostly efficient, and certainly not perfect.

Few divorces are pleasant, but the sharp, nasty scenes between Abby and Jake are the only emotionally honest moments over the first two episodes. Not surprisingly, they're the best ones, too. A shame the antagonists are so unlikable.

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

Nesbitt forcibly conveys the sense of a man who can't stop moving, even to sleep, until he finds his son. At least in the first hour--sorry, the only one I sampled--this feels like the kind of performance that just bought Starz a winner.

Amid all those speeches, there's beauty, passion, heart and brains in The Newsroom. There's also humor, even more than ever in Sunday's opener.

The Comeback" is strictly for Comeback connoisseurs--those who deeply missed this sad/funny mockumentary on the idiocy of show business.

McDormand will win an Emmy for this. Already, there's no contest.... Cholodenko's direction is masterful, and so is the bleakly funny script by Jane Anderson, but they clearly have a vision that is both part of--and separate from--the source material.

The McCarthys--good-natured, old-fashioned, unchallenging--isn't a bad sitcom, just an obvious one.

Mike Tyson Mysteries is highbrow lowbrow lampoon, alternately smart and stupid, dizzy and disgusting.

Mr. Dynamite instead works best as musical biography, only fitfully as a comprehensive one.

Messy pilot that doesn't offer enough backstory, or reason to care all that much about Constantine.

Solid star turn, eerie production values, even a killer ending.

Fun, lively, interesting, but also tends to lose focus at times.

Fascinating primer (that occasionally begs for more details and explanation).

Marry Me is the rarest of commercial TV sitcoms in that it's actually funny, has two standout leads and a superb supporting cast (especially Meadows and Bucatinsky).

That the whole pilot doesn't collapse into a pile of rubble is due to Rodriguez--or maybe because Jane is so confoundedly odd you want to see what happens next.

The Affair might be an exercise in literary gamesmanship if the acting and writing weren't so strong, or the setting so evocative.... Engrossing.

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.

Whom to vote for--Dot or Bette? Or will Paulson end up splitting the vote? The special effects are so seamless and Paulson's performance so memorable that it's not a completely incidental question. Then, of course, there's Lange.

A very good-looking pilot. That leaves Gustin, which is where nagging doubts crop up.... Gustin's Allen is blue of eye and clear of conscience. Sweet and gentle, he's immensely likable but not particularly intriguing, unlike Stephen Amell's Oliver Queen or even Tom Welling's Clark Kent.

So the show seems either a subversive deconstruction of the laugh-track sitcom blueprint or a stupefying misfire built around the blandest star ever.

Homeland's fourth season feels as fresh, important and relevant as yesterday's news--or tomorrow's news. A bracing, intelligent start.

With [Mike O'Malley's] fluid scripts, these sharp actors hit not just three-pointers but also free throws.

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

As with "HIMYM," guessing where that will be could be part of the fun--or frustration, if A to Z loses control of the story. Thursday's opener is so sharply executed, however, that doesn't look to be much of a concern.

The "Funny or Die" duo makes this zesty, single-camera comedy speak to adults by letting their lead be one.

It's all about the women-in-terror kick of frying them alive. (Oct. 15's episode promises a bride who's shot during her wedding.) Reprehensible.

This indisputably is Amazon Prime's “Orange Is the New Black.” That--believe me--is praise enough.

There might be something smartly contemporary buried deep inside Manhattan Love Story, but the pilot is too busy demonstrating its cognizance of connected devices and social media.

There's some charm here, but it's as fleeting as a tweet.

The pilot is ingenious but at moments maybe a little too smart for its own good.

Yes, "black-ish" can be fiercely funny, sharply observed, and unfailingly good-humored about the racial divide. But just beyond that glossy surface is a serious and even compelling undercurrent.

[Bakula and Pounder] should make the process of watching--or chore of watching, depending on your appetite for more of this formula--just a little more agreeable.

The Gotham opener probably makes the most compelling case of any newcomer this fall that at least one promise will be kept.

The plot is slight, the resolution a laugher and the characters basically stick figures. Scorpion has its fun moments, but not enough of them.

Forever isn't betting the future on plot mechanics, however, but on chemistry and that obscure object of desire called "sex appeal." These leads have it--in spades.

No one wants this show to channel "24," but C-SPAN won't do either. For the most part, however, Madam Secretary charts a steady--and intelligent--middle course.

Good, crackling start that--as the old saying goes--changes everything and may even point to the end.

A flawed if promising start for a tough old veteran that proved it's still got some fight--and talk--left.

Messy, discordant opener with potential.

This is an extremely tough balancing act or--back to the musical analogy--this is a show where the notes have to play exactly right. They don't here.

Burns and Ward pile on so much detail, alongside so much stunning footage, that by watching this whole spread--to borrow that famous and also well-rubbed line -- will be like arriving "where we started and know the place for the first time." Magnificent. Of course.

Fans will love Tuesday night's supersized launch. I'm just limp and weary from it all.

The end begins--evocatively, dramatically.

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

Multiple-personality thriller starts a bit slowly Wednesday night, but early signs still indicate a summer keeper for TNT.

What's surprising is that there's nothing remotely cheesy about 4th and Loud, a good docuseries that trains the camera most of the time on the guys on the field.

If this is comedy, who needs it? [24 Sept 2002, p.B27]

Aside from the snappier editing and Sisco's greater sexual aggressiveness - like "Sex and the City's" Samantha, she gets the men on her most-wanted list - this could almost be a "Police Woman" episode from 30 years ago. [1 Oct 2003, p.B23]

A nice balance of 60-40 character drama and medicine. "Homicide" heavyweight Braugher is intense once again, yet smart enough to keep sharing the screen with a strong ensemble. [10 Oct 2000]

An easily digestible guide to pop culture that can make any water-cooler conversation more interesting (or interminable). But this television adaptation--if tonight's premiere is representative--does not work.

Soderbergh has created a vibrant, dark and above all alluring Gotham. Owen's Thackery is its bracing human counterpart.