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]

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

The first episode is fairly execrable, but High Society settles down by the second, and we get a clearer--or at least less-boozy--view of Mortimer and her world.

"Teachers" isn't half-bad.

The pairing might have worked, if only they weren't saddled with trite dialogue. ("Am I disturbing you?" someone says to cafe owner Whoopi: "Too late, I'm already disturbed.") And it might have worked if the show had more resembled a "small" production of the kind that some pay-cable services specialize in instead of an assembly-line, go-for-the-cheap-shot sitcom. [30 Mar 1990, p.II-5]

Grim, sad, painful.

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

It's the tired guys will be guys trope dusted off for one of TV's pre-eminent comic actors, Tony Shalhoub, who can't even break through the smog of mediocrity that's enveloped him here.

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

So much of tonight's series pilot feels so glib and rings so false, it's hard to believe this soapy saga comes from the quality-not-quantity production team of Tom Fontana and Julie Martin.

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

Yeah, Brooklyn 11223 is awful, and awful not because it's inauthentic--it isn't necessarily to those being portrayed here--but because it's hugely phony.

The party's over, the hangover's begun, and the final summer looks like it's gonna be a long and wet one.

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]

Cynical, randy, derivative and as wearily familiar as a cup of cheap joe, "Freddie" is also expertly cast, acted, written and directed.

No matter where the goofy "Desperate Housewives" goes, it's not into the toilet, which is where Big Shots spends its time both literally and figuratively.

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.

Most of Luis so far is underdeveloped and oversold. [19 Sept 2003, p.B48]

"Donny!" would be as bad as you could imagine except ... it exceeds even your imagination.

Viewers will immediately locate the central flaw. If half of the contestants are so rich, then why go to all this trouble for $200,000?

Utterly vacuous and incompetent.

By summer's lower standards, the series is watchably preposterous. [19 July 1992, p.3]

Character likability is actually just one issue. Plausibility is the other.

There's cheese (i.e., all Syfy flicks) and then there's cheese--Velveeta vs. Brie. But guess what? Ghost Shark is both! How victims die, which body parts are left and where, the perfectly predictable dialogue and straight-faced performances, even a historical nod to Roanoke--we're just not worthy of this much smartly executed satisfaction.

It's got some charm and there's some humor here, too--mstly at Jones' expense. But seriously, don't you have something better to do tonight?

"Fashion House" is a bit more coherent, if still ludicrous.

There's no authentic life to Saint George beyond the setup/joke/laugh formula and its witless, gamy punchlines.

ABC's little-girl gang of four represents nothing more than cliches.