Great-looking but indistinctive in the early episodes (this review is based only on the first two).

The best part of the new series is that unfussy, effortless way of getting Kate's sexual orientation out of the way, and also Kate herself. She's a bantamweight crusader with lightning moves as opposed to devastating ones. ... What's less-best is the usual reliance on the sort of story that Gotham has undergone countless times before. There are no surprises left here, not even a decent dopey headline in the still-dopey, ever-credulous Gotham newspapers (which still don't have websites).

It's good. Showrunner Tim Doyle, the former executive producer of "Last Man Standing," obviously knows his way around big Irish Catholic American families of the late 20th century.

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]

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]

Cane" is not a bad show, and it's sporadically a good one. Merely, great expectations have not been met.

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]

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]

Engrossing at times and well worth watching, though the writing is often graceless and the direction haphazard.

Band of Brothers thus finds itself in a tricky no- man's land. It's too colloquial and too specific to be valuable in a larger historical sense, like the classic "World at War" series or any of the World War II documentaries that are a History Channel staple. Yet, it's too lacking in dramatic focal points to succeed fully as entertainment like "Private Ryan" or any of the dozens of World War II movies ("Battle Cry," "Battleground") that Hollywood turned out in the late 1940s and '50s. [7 Sept 2001, p.B02]

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]

The writing is occasionally sharp and observational, but the first episode relied too often on smarmy, anatomically based humor. [19 Apr 1990, p.9]

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]

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

But no one from this new group makes the kind of nails-on-blackboard impression that Omarosa or know-it-all Sam immediately did last year. Initially, they don't seem as interesting as the originals. [9 Sep 2004]

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

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

While we've got to be grateful that last season's tone-deaf Applewhite saga has seen its end, this year's "DH" still is sounding the occasional flat note, sometimes by repeating its past and other times by ignoring it altogether. [22 Sep 2006]

ABC hasn't provided much in advance to watch--smart network!--but there were some clips for Wipeout, and they were (seriously) hilarious.

A harmless and mostly fun little sitcom.

I like the old "Star Trek" better than the new. I also think the new show is somewhat boring and derivative. ... The new "Star Trek" tries to make the characters "realistic," and they turn out to be unbreakably plastic. [3 Jun 1988]

You get the sense that the filmmakers' vision and Wright's are never quite in sync--or perhaps are in sync too perfectly.

The wit can get a little heavyhanded sometimes - yes, it's another series with voiceover narration (can anybody say "Sex and the City"?) - but its heart, and head, are in the right place.

Murphy's concept in its basics is already beautiful. But he pushes the show to be a breathtaking knockout. Like some plastic surgery patients, Nip/Tuck initially gets such a pleasing result that it doesn't seem to know when to stop.

But my ultimate test for any comedy is - what else? - "Does it make me laugh?" Arrested Development seldom does. Not loudly, anyway...It has neither the liberating audacity of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" nor the delirious, anything-for-a-laugh energy of NBC's "Scrubs," the two contemporary comedies that consistently crack me up. It's reminiscent of the taboo- breaking 1970s comedy serial "Soap," but drier, more deadpan, and with less endearing characters. Does it deserve a wider audience than it has gotten? Sure. But I can't imagine it becoming a mainstream hit for Fox like "The Simpsons" or "Malcolm in the Middle."

[The episodes are] smarter than you might expect but not quite as clever as they work at being. Like the family unit it portrays, this dark/lighthearted drama tries to have everything at once and struggles under the far-reaching effort.

A pleasant but routine sitcom that uses that decade of significant social change as a hook...The Wonder Years handles its period details - clothing, hairstyles - well. The look of the '60s is rendered with an authentic, evocative feel. Like virtually every sitcom, it has its banal moments, and here and there the gags fizzle. [30 Jan 1988, p.11]

A relentlessly grim and deeply depressing viewing experience.