The visual components of the show—particularly the armament and the battle scenes—are sleek enough to excite younger viewers. But the plots and characters in Space are as thin as the air up there, and might leave adults floating out in the cold.

It takes a lot to make Saturday Night Live look like a sharp, sophisticated show, but Mad TV's lowbrow stab at humor does just that.

Though the show lacks the inspired cohesiveness of classic sitcoms like Cheers or Seinfeld, it is bright, brisk and well-played.

The show's weakness is a negligible supporting cast, particularly Diedrich Bader and Ryan Stiles.

If this weak, artificial and strained sitcom tickles your funny bone, you might be a redneck.

This is an old scow of a series, hefty and handsome but listing toward tedium.

Stylish and well-acted, this is the rare show in which commercials hit with a jolt, awakening you from the program's potent spell.

The show has a sophisticated sense of humor that suits Silverman's talents. But he is surrounded by an anemic cast.

The tone of Central Park West is so facile, glossy and brittle that its visual style often resembles some frosty Eurotrash perfume commercial. But the first episodes hit the ground sprinting.

Coast to Coast is like some hysterical hallucination for grown-ups, a show that makes oddball cartoons like Ren & Stimpy seem as tame as Muppet Babies.

Too bad none of the five participants have much spark, and nothing unique seems to happen to anybody.

Dream On doesn't seem quite as inventive as it used to be. Still, it is superior to most of the dreck on the networks.

The writing can be clever.

In fact they're all really nice, which is the problem. Except for some minor sexual tension, there's no conflict.

Dr. Katz is a cartoon cross between The Bob Newhart Show and Seinfeld.

Anderson gives the character an irresistible goofy charm, and it's nice to see a western that doesn't take the genre too seriously.

NewsRadio is a nervier, more sophisticated version of WKRP in Cincinnati, updated to a time when people are much less secure about their jobs and far more wary about each other.

The drama is sci-fi lite, rendered with gee-whiz energy and a sense of levity. And it's frivolous and under-imagined.

Trading on a paranoid, conspiratorial tone that recalls The Prisoner and MTV's Dead at 21, the show is jumbled but jazzy.

That premise could make for a crisp and slick adventure hour; it did in the pilot. Already, though, Fahey's character is losing definition because of a string of unfocused scripts.

The new entry is more action-oriented and less morally ponderous than the recent Star Trek series. But it still suffers from its predecessors' overdeveloped air of gravitas.

Shepherd handles the romantic banter quite well. ... But so far, Shepherd isn't particularly adept at the other comic demands of her role: the double takes, the slowly dawning reactions, the ironic deliveries and other tricks of the trade.

If only the show had a more energetic atmosphere, its characters wouldn't seem so lost in space.

This is hysterical entertainment for grown-ups.

[Homicide]... continues to be the best drama—-not just cop drama—-on TV.

The show's saving grace is that as the weeks go by, the characters begin to grow on you. That has more to do with the actors' animation than it does with the rimshot writing.

The emergency sequences are pure adrenaline rush, but the drama, romance and humor ladled into the lull periods are pretty hackneyed.

Intelligent, fleet, emotionally complex and lightly dusted with Kelley's celebrated sense of the absurd, this is the best hospital show since St. Elsewhere.

Baseball is a monumental achievement, perhaps too monumental for TV. For fans, it is a sumptuous feast. But its 18 1/2-hour length will daunt those without an acute interest in the game.

Mantis's costume is cool, but the plots and action scenes are lukewarm at best.

In the solemn pilot the youngsters were all incredibly mature, incredibly patient, incredibly understanding and incredibly dull. But the characters seem to be growing more selfish, randy and funky.

I'm beseeching you to watch the pilot of this new series. It's not just extraordinary TV--it's the best piece of filmmaking I've seen anywhere this year. ... In subsequent weeks the series settles into a more predictable and sentimental mold, reminiscent of The Wonder Years, but it is still superior TV.

A newsmagazine with a hip attitude is basically a good idea. A newsmagazine with a flip approach is not.

It's part underwear ad, part catfight, part Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and part psycho ward. So far it's also pretty stiff and strident, particularly in regard to the acting.

This septet just has more highly evolved communication skills. They have a problem? They sit down and talk about it. BOR-ING!!! Or maybe the novelty has just worn off this experiment.

Mirren is once again marvelous.

The show is a train crash of sight gags, puns, spoofs and mock-existential ponderings. Inventive and daft, this cartoon is just plain ducky.

It doesn't help the show to have such a wooden presence al the helm. As Commander Sinclair, lead actor Michael O'Hare is like Lorne Greene under hypnosis. In fact, this colorful but cheesy satellite opera aspires to nothing greater than being a '90s Battiestar Galactica.

At its best, it's still several strides behind the savage, protean wit of The Simpsons, and the humor sputters when the focus is personal—detailing Sherman's dating woes or his relationship with his son.

It's a traditional, timeless sitcom scheme that would have worked as well in the '50s as it does in the '90s. ... The show's strengths are its uncluttered concept and its cast.

On balance it's a good, fun show. But it's not a true standout.

If the producers can keep the mood spooky, this show will have its devoted adherents. Deservedly so.

Savage's sarcastic bon mots sound distinctly more like the words of a grown-up gag writer than they do the spontaneous utterings of a preadolescent. Even though they've dumbed him up since the Borscht Belt pilot, his character is still overwritten.

They should have spent less of that budget on computer graphics, scale models and sets—and more on the writing. This is drab melodrama.

Strikingly shot, wonderfully cast, this tough, taut, atmospheric show is the season's best new series.

The concept seems to be an easy one to exhaust. But if the writing manages to stay fresh, we could be looking at the '90s version of The Bob Newhart Show.

In the tradition of Cheers, the show thrives by selling up distinct, contrary personalities and making them collide for a half-hour each week. So far the writing is sharp and punchy.

It is a beguiling romantic adventure.

The humor is raucous and raunchy.

The show has a refreshing sense of humor and whimsy.

Some of the first-season bugs have been exterminated simply by recruiting young roommates who are more interesting and charismatic, people who smile and laugh a little more.

The animation is clunky (about on a par with The Pink Panther); the gags are gross and not even remotely funny.

Grows more opaque, tangled and macabre as it goes along.

The crime at the heart of the matter isn't quite as intriguing as the one Mirren faced first time around. But the actress is again superb as a woman tenaciously pursuing a demanding job.

The best ensemble cop drama since Hill Street Blues.

A capable cast makes this the best of Fox's dopey young adult melodramas.

Like The Next Generation, this show tends to be morally didactic. But also like its mother ship, Deep Space Nine is richly imagined, with good scripts and great visuals.

The jokes are, for the most part, more clever than funny.

When the focus is on the trio's fractious home life, the show is lively enough to overcome its formulaic nature. But Curry also plays a substitute teacher, which means he's often surrounded by precocious little smart alecks.

The scope is a little cramped but the writing is wonderfully droll.

Slick and often witty, this is a show with its high beams on. But the device of having Dey and Thomas directly address the camera isn't the only false note struck. The characters are thin, and the chemistry doesn't cook.

This program is a little more loopy and labored than Bloodworth-Thomason's other shows and has to forage around longer to uncover its punch lines. But the leads are very adept at playing up what humor there is.

This would just be another substandard sitcom, if not for its alarmingly sexist bent.

The show runs on the same alternating current of pathos and comedy as L.A. Law, but the drama is more ponderous and the humor a good deal more forced.

The drama is clumsy and over-baked and the plotting implausible. ... Still, an energetic cast and the musical setting combine to make this silly show watchable.

What it lacks is wit, depending instead on Lawrence to do shtick. He overacts terribly, hammily mugging for the camera.

Shandling's laid-back comic style dovetails with the dry writing, creating a series that's the clear victor in the talk show wars.

Few programs are as genuinely youthful in look and altitude.

It's the gleeful goriness that sets the series apart. This is a show with plenty of guts.

Makes a nice first impression but quickly wears out its welcome.

The show's comically choreographed mayhem is a difficult premise to sustain, like trying to stage a big bumper-car pileup again and again. So be sure to watch—and tape—this week's pilot directed by Lynch. It's a doozy.

As a social experiment, this project fizzles because of the imposing scrutiny (even the phone is tapped) and because of the artificial relationship foisted on these instant loftmates. But as television, it's rather intriguing.

Each episode tries to shoehorn in bold a history and an ethics lesson with the period dress and picturesque ports of call. The result, though visually rich, is like a fuddy-duddy theme-park ride.

A crackling good British police procedural. ... The British accents and idioms can get dense, but don't let that throw you, you dozy punter.

Contrived? And then some. But it's shot with the kind of So-Flo art deco shine we haven't seen since Miami Vice.

An uninvolving melodrama with a large undifferentiated cast.

It's painful to criticize a show that has intelligence and depth, but there's no getting around the fact that overarching earnestness and a subtle but troubling air of fatalism combine to make this a dolorous hour.

The episodes have grown slower and schmaltzier since the gripping pilot, but this series is still as sweet as an egg cream made with Fox's U-Bet Chocolate Syrup.

The series makes a weak slab at the Hill Street Blues mix of humor and pathos. But Chiklis is a marvel of believability, vividly creating a character who is disarming, droll, clever and compassionate.

Allen is one of the fall's freshest finds. But all the best punch lines in the hilarious pilot came right out of his "Men Are Pigs" stand-up routine. With the writers out on their own, the humor seems to be thinning out.

Ragsdale has vigor, and the office scenes, featuring Jason Bernard, Yeardley Smith, Jane Sibbett and Hank Azaria, work moderately well without the intrusion of the barbershop quartet in his cerebellum. That gimmick, however, makes the show unbearably contrived.

The writing undercuts a talented cast. ... Still, this is a decent kind of sitcom.

Imagine Twin Peaks for preteens.

An attractive, multi-accented cast and far-flung locales make it worth the trip. [1 Jul 2013, p.36]

A fun buzz. [1 Jul 2013, p.36]

The pilot establishes an eerie claustrophobic dread, and well-budgeted special effects add intensity. [1 Jul 2013, p.35]

The only thing more uneven than the quality of the videos is host Bob Saget's comic commentary.

True Blood is neglecting the potent subtext of vampire myth--forbidden sex and romance--in favor of political allegory. [24 Jun 2013, p.39]

[A] cool yet intensely emotional British crime series. [24 Jun 2013, p.40]

A smoothly executed vehicle for Rebecca Romijn and Jon Tenney, it knows exactly what it's doing, [16 Jun 2013]

The show may never again attain the sustained comic brilliance of last week's pilot. But this is a rarity for Fox: a sophisticated and clever sitcom.

Somehow the premiere hour fills in all this background without getting lost and--more importantly--with sincerity and sensitivity. [10 Jun 2013, p.50]

[A] disappointingly thin, damp new series. [10 Jun 2013, p.47]

By and large, they all seem to know exactly how to play to the camera and signal they're in on this nonsense. That gives Princesses a thin but distinct edge. [10 Jun 2013, p.48]

What hasn't changed and what matters, is Mireille Enos's sodden, unshakable integrity as a detective who could outlast a pack of bloodhounds. [10 Jun 2013, p.48]

This new, fourth season isn't bad but it's a very different beast from the original, and it's not nearly as funny.

It wouldn't hurt to pick up the pace, but Graceland is a successful move toward true grittiness. [3 Jun 2013, p.43]

Director Steven Soderbergh's Candelabra is one of the smartest, tartest examples I've ever seen of that soupy genre, the Hollywood biopic. [27 May 2013, p.39]