The busy season premiere quickly constructs an intriguing seesaw of aspirations and emotions, and it's self-contained enough to sell itself to even Nip/Tuck newcomers.

Samantha Who? which is not nearly as cool a title, but still a sparkling comedy that treats its viewers as--gasp!--actual grown-ups.

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.

On top of the stars' subtlety and Fuller's verbal wit, Sonnenfeld's pilot direction ladles layers of flashy frosting--theatrical camera angles, emphatic zooms, intensified color and those heavyhanded moments when the narration can't quite straddle the sap line.

Carpoolers is like a flimsy "Saturday Night Live" skit pounded home and running on beyond endurance. Actors sputter their lines, dither and whimper like some 1950s sitcom.

This narrated comedy-drama finely observes the particulars and peculiarities of teen life, both in the family its narrator is trying to outgrow and the high school pecking order he's hoping to rise in.

Alex O'Loughlin is bogged down by trite dialogue, half-hearted support, perfunctory exposition, and better-to-look-good-than-make-sense production priorities.

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.

NBC's new Bionic Woman remake is a desolate slab of ice where any resemblance to human beings - alive, dead or cyborgian--is purely coincidental. It's hard to imagine a bigger modernized mess being made

Good thing is, this ABC hour lives up (down?) to its name, arriving as a wacky/kinky escapist saga of screwed-up rich folks and the down-to-earth family attorney/fixer hired to sort out their shenanigans.

Lewis is such a commanding presence that Sarah Shahi is rendered little more than an accessory as Dani. There's nothing going on between the partners at the outset, but this is subject to change.

Private Practice is hugely disappointing, and in so many ways that a mere review can't even begin to do all the problems injustice.

It's all sharp and snappy.

Cane" is not a bad show, and it's sporadically a good one. Merely, great expectations have not been met.

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

The real-world intrigue is matched in dramatic flair by Chuck-world jeopardy. His store's fierce assistant-manager competition resounds as fatefully as saving the universe from evil. Which makes the dark light enough and the light dark enough to meld into a tasty escapist treat.

There's just too much shtick and not enough personality, especially when the stars' previous hits found their funny in relatable human behavior.

Gossip Girl actually isn't bad by the standards of the medium--with "The Hills" pretty much being the standard--and it's even surprisingly competent.

This show is slickly packaged and unchallengingly trite in its slavish reality-show construction.

It's daring, disconcerting and/or enlightening.

He's sincere; he rings true. And that is why, in the wasteland of reality and makeover shows, Gunn shines.

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?

Disney's HSM2 delivers precisely what's required. And America is all ears.

Giving us hope are Kapinos' brisk writing and Duchovny's agile performance, conveying smarts, savvy, self-indulgence and sad stupidity in equal amounts.

Nobody seems to be having any fun here, not even lording-it-over-everybody Ming. You'd think next week's second episode might be better, once all that exposition is out of the way, but you'd be wrong. It's even more lifeless.

If only the delicacy of these two character actors [Alfred Molina and Michael Keaton], were matched by that of The Company's central figures and the production's overall arc.

Richness of detail permeates this modern tube-noir. The more damage done, the more juicy fun for us to savor.

To steal from the old beer slogan, (this show) looks great, (but it's) less filling (than it intends).