If you loved last season, there's nothing so far to indicate you won't like the second just as much.

Make a list of sitcom cliche shtick, and you'd find it all here. The eye-bulging hard-trying line sell. The ba-dum-bum punch line rhythm. The motormouth babbling to signify "wackiness." The louder- the-better sense of comedy. Even the family visit where members enter a room precisely a peculiar eight paces apart so each has time for an entrance "joke." [27 Feb 2003, p.B31]

Respectable, incomplete survey (on TV) Thursday night, but future installments look better.

An oddity with additional oddness in the form of Malkovich. But as summer diversions go, this looks to be a good one.

[An] entertaining, engaging start.

Amusing, dumb, silly--exactly what you'd expect.

The herky-jerky camera work whenever it appears to shake barns or gobble up an off-road vehicle only calls attention to the fact that this is a cheaper production. And the human cast gathered around Gross is sorely lacking in the quirkiness that made the original ensemble so much fun. The new gang wouldn't be out of place in a Gap commercial. And yet ... there is something about the kitschy graboid and the hydra-like cluster of smaller worms that erupt from its mouth that's both laughably ludicrous and primordially unnerving. [27 Mar 2003, p.B35]

The cast succeeds, and in the end, so does Heart.

Pulp hooey with a comic book vitality and earnestness that manages to keep it (usually) on track.

Tonight's first episode is highly recommended for Ed Begley Jr. fans who may have wondered what Dr. Victor Ehrlich has been doing since "St. Elsewhere." [20 Aug 1990, p.9]

Is there anything great here? No. Is it goofy fun? Yes.

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

This John Logan creation promises an intriguing summer pastime, for an eight-week run anyway.

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]

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]

24, in other words, is still thankfully 24.

Uncle Buck is sometimes funny like a poke in the eye. It's crude and vulgar. The jokes are obvious, the situations cliched, the characters obnoxious. Would you believe a lecherous insurance agent named Doreen Douche? [10 Sept 1990, p.9]

Louie very much remains Louie in the best sense.

For this series to wear well, the forces of evil have to locate some clear motivation. Revolutionary ideology, world domination, pure greed - almost anything would be better than the explanation offered by next week's chief villain, who clings to her missile launcher and declares, "This is what I am." [12 Jan 1997, p.03]

The pair has recast the concept and their chemistry into a suburban setting that feels fresher and friendlier, truly finding its footing at 10:30 with Sloane (and those gnomes).

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.

Black Box creates compelling people while smartly pondering identity, relationships, connection--it doesn't need the amped-up atmosphere.

In two unbearably long hours, the film says nothing that wasn't said first, or better, 21 years ago. And where the original had a palpable air of menace, a mood hot and sticky with fear, the TV sequel is as fast-moving as a stagnant pond. [4 Mar 1988, p.7]

And I like programs which show women as competent, caring, intelligent individuals. Young girls who start watching this program Saturday night are more fortunate than those in the 1970s who grew up with "Charlie's Angels" as role models. [9 Sept 1988, p.13]

There's a vibrancy here, and a clarity, that we haven't seen in network sitcoms in ages. The way ABC's "Lost" reconfigured dramatic storytelling, Showtime's Barbershop so invigorates the humor format that we hate to call it a sitcom. It's entirely its own animal. And that's evolution of a kind everyone can get behind. [12 Aug 2005, p.]

The show can be messy and confusing--a headlong rush to who-knows- where-or-why at times. But those clones keep it grounded.

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]

The time allotted isn't long enough to truly convey the touchstones a sci-fi devotee might demand. But with so much skated through, it's plenty to confuse a newbie.