Lehman is good, most everything's OK, but nothing is especially fresh or compelling.

Far and away the best new pilot on NBC this season.

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

But what makes this show different is Jerry Stiller. George Costanza's father is now Doug Heffernan's father-in-law. And what a riot he is. [21 Sept 1998, p.B23]

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

It's pretty much impossible to describe The Beast without getting tangled in the underbrush of potboiler cliche....The good news, in fact, the wonderful news, is that Swayze really is good.

It's a $300 million TV series for no one. ... This is a very, very bad show.

There’s a fascinating sideshow here--Carey’s tough manager--otherwise this is a by-the-book celebrity reality series that just happens to star one of the world’s biggest celebrities.

Wonderful. ... It is a realistic drama, the sort of thing you might see occasionally on experimental "American Playhouses" on public TV. But nobody does realistic drama on commercial TV today. [1 May 1990]

The formula's a little too familiar, the pilot a tad dull. But Michalka's a big talent and for that reason, Hellcats has potential.

Nice to look at, good performances, but ultimately a snooze.

It's all weirdly engrossing.

NCIS is going to succeed first and foremost because of Harmon. His character is more or less the same quietly confident, genial guy he played when he was Allison Janney's ill-fated love interest on "The West Wing." He's essentially playing himself, and he's very good at it. [23 Sept 2003, p.B02]

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 filming is urgent! The dialogue is obvious! The actors get choked up! It's as if a film school class put together a thriller following all the rules precisely.

What's missing here, besides laughs? Chemistry.

Nice, also determinedly dull.

The pilot is itself uneven, with the go-for-bonkers impudence of a live-action "Family Guy." But without it, Mystery Girls might be just another ABC Family-com for viewers who have aged out of Disney Channel and silly situations with sentimental topping for studio audience uproar.

Mildly amusing, though take out some of the harsh language and you've got more of a Disney Channel or TeenNick series than a memorable Fox one.

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

The characters, scripts and performances are surprisingly smart--almost, dare I say, deep. And you still get the comic humiliations, nasty rivalries and teeny bikinis.

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]

Platinum-plated nonsense--but also self-aware enough to know just how nonsensical. Deception is mostly just a lot of fun.

The good news is that "Brothers & Sisters" isn't even remotely a disaster. The bad news is that it isn't even remotely a success either.

In the pilot, some of the lines even find their mark--assuming the intended mark are sites like BuzzFeed, Digg, Cracked, Reddit, Upworthy and so on. But the millennial jokes quickly grow stale, along with their “what is it with these kids” setups.

Recycled theory with some fresh perspective--but it still smells recycled.

"Help Me" is a Gobi Desert of laughs... There's a strong odor of desperation on-screen, as if the competent and seasoned actors here know they're in this for a short ride. Indeed, they are.

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.