Foremost, getting Brody off-screen turns out to be an inspired move. In his absence, there's a new world order, or disorder, with a lot of people left to assemble the pieces, including Saul, Carrie, and most of all, Dana.

Humor is also key in the capacious pilot hour directed by John Madden ("Shakespeare in Love"). Subsequent episodes echo its deft balance of epic scope and whimsical humanity.

Get past the mawkishness (if you can) and there's a sweetness here, and geniality. The Michael J. Fox Show needs to be much more, but love is hard to shake.

You hope for a laugh, pray for one, then give up. To be fair, tonight's pilot runs fast (19 minutes) and feels more like a "sizzle reel" than a fully formed show. Williams, at least, is a genius, and maybe he'll get the time to turn this into something worth watching.

The cast throws this curveball that catches the plate for a strike.

Akerman has to be everything. Good thing she's a nimble actress.... Whitford is always winning, and even the poor exes find wiggle room inside their cliches.

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

Lucky 7 might offer more to like than authentic texture of place, race, personality and workplace emotions.

As with "The Avengers," Whedon's ear and sensibilities match the material perfectly.

The pilot's envelope-pushing is caustic and obvious, two things Mom seems better than. Faris is both gutsy and touching as the adult trying to get her act together, while Janney's crafty adolescence extends to a third generation around Faris' two kids.

Smart, intriguing thriller, but the opener is slightly overheated.

Spader seems to be the only one who actually gets the gameplay here.... And the script seems to incite his appetite.

ABC must be loco throwing Lopez to the critical wolves like this. [27 Mar 2002, p.B31]

Tonight's opening episode of The Guardian is as well-crafted as any of this fall's series pilots. The hour plays like a tidy little TV movie. And therein lies its potential problem. Where the series can go from here-go, that is, without losing credibility and the dramatic tensions that make it distinctive-is difficult to fathom. [25 Sept 2001, p.B27]

Human beings live on the corner, and "The Corner" makes us care about them. [16 Apr 2000, p.D15]

If the first two episodes are indicative of the kind of inspired lunacy these guys will produce over the next 20 weeks, the Kids may well be the successors to Monty Python, SNL and SCTV. [21 July 1989, p.5]

Yes, offensive, but the second episode loses that element, which suggests Fox got the message. Not surprisingly, it's the better of the two.

Easily one of fall's better new comedies, but don't expect to be blown away yet. The pilot offers just a taste of what's to come, which is plenty good enough.

Nothing scary here, but Hollow is fun enough, and promising enough, too.

It's hilarious, and sad, and ironic, and rich.

Mostly fascinating tales from all the presidents' men that occasionally need (sometimes badly) journalistic balance and perspective.

The acting is first-rate, and so is the writing, but the violence is appalling, and not just appalling, but creatively appalling.

Based on most of the first five episodes sent out for review, Boardwalk Empire easily establishes its claim as one of the three or four best dramas on TV.

All charisma and command, [Idris Elb] blasts through the screen in every shot while his performance is a constant reminder that the craft, at its best, is a gossamer of countless little details that add up to something magical.

Lavisly illustrated with archival footage, much of it rare, The March makes it almost easy to forget that words--not to mention the one man who said them--were the real stars that day.... Excellent, exhaustive.

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.

These guys are so bland and their together time so contrived, it's more fun to watch the gears turn on the tired docusoap machine.

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]