Flesh and Bone is so grim, so devoid of pleasure, so moldering that you're left to wonder why this significant collection of talent didn't actually have something fun or exciting to say about the New York ballet world.

The filmmakers' assurance makes this miniseries play more like bang-up drama than fact-filled documentary. Yet their facts pass informative muster, and emotional validity, too.

Silly, but let's take the glass half-full approach. There's nowhere to go but up.

The Brink is a grim would-be comedy grindhouse full of half-baked one-liners propping up an overbaked plot.

Married, in particular, is one-note with character tone: clueless people acting heedlessly.

The show's an enjoyable diversion.

Oh, sure, they can pierce necks and drink blood: Big deal! Any ol' vampire can do that. With a limited repertoire of vampire moves, the Radcliffs shoulda moved to Bon Temps instead of the Gates to learn some new tricks.

After Spartacus blows most of its special-effects budget on the pilot, it settles into a not-bad sword-and-sandal genre series, a la "Xena" or "Hercules."

Noisy, silly, occasionally obnoxious, sporadically funny and ultimately sweet.

Interesting idea, otherwise deadly dull.

"Drive" is less the sort of textured character study we've come to expect than an action-packed joy ride. That's not to say you won't wanna hop in. But it's hardly a journey you've gotta take.

A weightless and occasionally airless trip down memory lane.

"L&O" is back, but it doesn't make a strong case for why it should be.

The target viewer wouldn't watch all this predictable--I mean, impulsive--bickering and button-pushing while thinking: I wonder why all the paintings and posters on the walls in the background are blurred out? And then think: Geez, why am I even wondering about that? The audience for Joan Knows Best? will be loving Joan's visits to three plastic surgeons Tuesday, not fretting.

Greetings From Tucson tries the high-wire act of both avoiding and exploiting Mexican-American stereotypes, and falls flat on its back in the desert sand next to the tire swing and the El Camino. [20 Sept 2002]

An interesting, compelling idea for a TV series. Too bad a boilerplate cop procedural had to be the series they got instead.

Updated, sharply written, socially conscious, this new version wants to improve on the original and often does. But what’s missing is a compelling reason for a reboot in the first place.

Cannavale's Cupid is at least funny and charming. He's good here and so is Paulson. The weak link--the "B" story, like tonight's tepid one with the Postie, which was as appetizing as week-old cod.

Tales From the Crypt scared the living bejesus out of me...We are talking major league fright time here, folks. [9 June 1989, p.5]

The pilot still is often clever and engaging, but confusing too.

A grim, macabre march through a terrible crime, deploying a bad twist--the voice of the deceased.

The women's friendship radiates authentic undertones, beneath all the gooed-up personal drivel, although it's way too convenient how they always show up simultaneously at the same crime scenes.

Arthur and Agatha flit through the pilot, barely registering. In fact, no one registers. They're all line drawings in service to some very nice special effects and a pilot that's already tangled up in way too many plot tangents.

A little long-winded in some stretches, not detailed enough in others but Holmes fans--and fans of cop procedurals--should like this.

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.

Like the original, this "GG" can be pithy and clever (that Forster line tells you as much) but unlike the original, at times glum and muddled too. It's a sibling-rivalry drama set in the age of Instagram and COVID, where social media is the true villain. That part may be accurate — just not quite as much fun.

As expected, the transition from big screen to small doesn't exactly work. What this Bad Teacher really needed to do was outsmart the source material--make this version more clever, or sharper, or funnier, or (above all) make it for adults.

A breath of cold, bracing and - bless it - fresh air. Eisner's fable is dark, almost impenetrably so, though skillfully rendered. Best of all, nothing here has ever been performed on reality TV, the best I can tell.