Now, ma'am, no need to bolt like a horse-unless you're scared of cliches. You aren't, are you?

The problem with all this sensitivitiy is that the show has a tougher time delivering on the whimsy. [3 May 2010, p.42]

The comedy never quite lifts into giddiness, but there are lots of solid, unexpected laughs. And isn't that cause for celebration? [26 Apr 2010, p.40]

Tudor history is irresistible, even if the bedroom gymnastics here seem more in keeping with the Playboy Mansion than a royal palace. [19 Apr 2010, p.47]

Co-created by David Simon and Eric Over­myer, the team behind The Wire, this is a lovingly textured, slowly unfolding series set in post-Katrina New Orleans. [26 Apr 2010, p.40]

This Miami trauma-hospital drama is marginally better than "Three Rivers."

Olyphant plays this laconic, loping lawman with a smiling minimalism that makes Givens both iconic and contemporary.

It's the jungle version of Saving Private Ryan's opening battle, over and over across 10 hours. Why, then, is this so excitingly powerful instead of just numbing? Because the stakes are huge: The historical momentum pulls you in and drags you along.

This FOX version of a family sitcom isn't as irreverent or formula-free as it thinks--ABC's "The Middle" is actually edgier--but it scores points for never resorting to mere cuteness and for throwing in a bizarre sight gag about frozen squirrels.

In her enjoyably ridiculous reality show, she's self-consciously restrained, perhaps trying to project old-fashioned noblesse oblige-even while goosing her Google profile with this project in self-exposure. She just ends up neutralizing herself. The show is dominated instead by a supporting group of rich kids who take the reverse tactic of whole-hog shamelessness.

None of these results will rock a viewer's world, but it's unexpectedly satisfying to see stars in a reality project that's more relatable than ballroom dancing or a temporary work detail for Donald Trump.

This adaptation of the hit 1989 movie is emotionally ample, as any decent family drama should be, but the premiere feels like a dowdier cousin of shows already out there.

The scale is wrong. This is an overelaborate piffle, a crate-size bon-bon. The best thinge is Papa.

There isn't much of a story, though. The best thing is the terrific song in the opening credits: Aloe Blacc's "I Need a Dollar." It has the sort of itchy desperation that should have driven the whole show.

It's standard murder-of-the-week type stuff with just a hint of pseudo spirituality. Trouble is, characters who speak in cliches don't deserve to be in your living room.

This go-round, a tired-looking Bobby Brown struggles to act like he's there for anything other than the paycheck, and Britney Spears' ex Kevin Federline (who appears alongside his ex Shar Jackson) comes off like a man defeated. Bummer, dude.

I want to root for a reality series that uplifts, but for this one to work, it either needs to be more fun or more real. [15 Feb 2010, p.43]

The premiere delivers a show that's more winkingly cute than it really needs ro be. [25 Jan 2010, p.42]

The tenuousness of the situation, and the underlying hope for emotional growth by all, makes for a touching hour. [25 Jan 2010, p.43]

After two flabby seasons, the Fox action series is back in bang-up shape. [25 Jan 2010, p.41]

The show, despite good stunt work, is clunkily overfamiliar. [1 Feb 2010, p.37]

Paxton's supported by a vast cast of vivid characters waging holy battle while chasing the almighty dollar. [11 Jan 2010, p.41]

Got to kick it up a notch, Chuck. [18 Jan 2010, p.41]

While the show's humor can be raunchy or even cruel, the voice work is pure unruffled deadpan. [18 Jan 2010, p.42]

The declining but not yet flatlining EKG of their relationship is captured very nicely by Williams and Matchett, both giving strong, stoic performances. Everything else is too quiet, though. [25 Jun 2007, p.41]

The show's tone of enigmatic menace is overcooked. [25 Jun 2007, p.41]

[It] remains a nervily ambiguous concept. [18 Jun 2007, p.37]

The tone of the first three episodes is grubby yet also precious. [11 Jun 2007, p.41]

A satisfyingly meaty drama. [11 Jun 2007, p.41]

Apart from the fact that the gags aren't funny... it's off-putting to see something sacred being mucked around with. [30 Apr 2007, p.37]

This is Amazing Race of the damned, with something of the open-ended, Pandora's-box mystery of Lost, and it has the potential for out-there adventure. [23 Apr 2007, p.37]

Innocently goofy. [30 Apr 2007, p.37]

The cast has an ordinariness that's a little too believable. [16 Apr 2007, p.43]

The show is a lusty soap opera that aspires to the pulsating, cutting-edge glamour of Cate Blanchett's Elizabeth. It's a little ham-fisted for that. [2 Apr 2007, p.37]

Something like Entourage without the manic, kick-start fury of Ari Gold. [2 Apr 2007, p.37]

The show falls prey to a faint preciousness in the voiceover narration from its correspondents and host Glass. They overarticulate the ironies instead of just letting you watch. Which you should do. Watch. [26 Mar 2007, p.37]

It's Court TV's first original scripted drama, and it's bad. [16 Apr 2007, p.43]

This show has a light, charming sense of the ridiculous. [19 Mar 2007, p.39]

It's a hallucinatory riff on an old noir tradition (is Raines being played for a sap by his own daydreams?), but the gimmick doesn't click. [19 Mar 2007, p.39]

Is there anything here that Bruce Springsteen hasn't already sung about? [19 Mar 2007, p.39]

[Driver's] tone gets under the skin. As does the show. [19 Mar 2007, p.39]

It's like watching a marionette with one set of strings operated by John Lithgow and the other by Pee-wee Herman. [12 Mar 2007, p.39]

I wish the show had a little more verisimilitude--the peasants' homes look cheap, not poor--but it's zippy mindless fun. [5 Mar 2007, p.37]

It gets an unexpected freshness from a young cast. [5 Mar 2007, p.37]

Everything has the familiar mechanical deadness of a sitcom assembled from old ideas. [12 Feb 2007, p.39]

This show is so wrong. And I loved every minute of it. [5 Feb 2007, p.37]

Top Design will make you not want to leave your TV room--no matter what it looks like. [5 Feb 2007, p.37]

The series' sixth season begins with an intensely entertaining four-hour, two-night premiere. [15 Jan 2007, p.33]

As in season 1, the acting is rich and lusty, with no costume-drama fustiness. [15 Jan 2007, p.33]

It's a good cast, and Arquette's peculiar charm is always welcome. But I'm tired of comedies about the desperate infantilism of panicked adults. [8 Jan 2007, p.35]

Of the large, nicely peppered cast, I especially like Vergara, who has some of the vamping yumminess of a Catherine Zeta-Jones. [8 Jan 2007, p.35]

Cox... doesn't have the right vulgar relish to hold the show together. [8 Jan 2007, p.35]

The quickened pulse is a plus: The violence registers as sharp, stinging slaps. [11 Dec 2006, p.41]

There are small funny moments along the way. [4 Dec 2006, p.39]

The relationship of saint to sinner has seldom been so moving. [26 Feb 2007, p.39]

I found 1 vs. 100 much more enjoyable [than Deal Or No Deal]. [23 Oct 2006, p.37]

It's the best new sitcom of the fall. [16 Oct 2006, p.39]

So far, it's of interest only for watching Lithgow--who likes to shout his lines with quivering urgency, as if he'd just seen a UFO--as he goes over the top to get a laugh. [16 Oct 2006, p.39]

This could be the fall's finest drama. [9 Oct 2006, p.41]

It feels so close to actual American life that it lacks the gut excitement that would take it over the line into true entertainment. [9 Oct 2006, p.41]

If you want edge, here's Dexter. [9 Oct 2006, p.41]

[A] delicious over-the-top comedy. [2 Oct 2006, p.45]

It's pleasant enough--and thankfully it's not zany. The problem is that Danson's crisis is believable midlife comedy, while the patients' neuroses are closer to stock. [9 Oct 2006, p.41]

You go on the lam, and you find Laguna Beach. [2 Oct 2006, p.45]

The show's fun, and a little freaky. [2 Oct 2006, p.45]

The show wants to mix in big themes (politics, money) with a family soap opera, but it just feels bloated and vague. [25 Sep 2006, p.43]

The show's a letdown, especially since it comes with one of the most lovingly assembled casts of any series. [9 Oct 2006, p.41]

Woods is every bit as entertaining as he strives to be. [25 Sep 2006, p.43]

Mostly it feels like an instructional film about disaster preparedness. [2 Oct 2006, p.45]

It's a gripper. [25 Sep 2006, p.43]

The pyrotechnics involved in the opening heist are good, and the cast is a dream. [25 Sep 2006, p.43]

The Class doesn't necessarily generate more laughs than other sitcoms, but it has more charm--like a kinder, gentler How I Met Your Mother--and that's incentive enough to stick with it. [16 Oct 2006, p.39]

The show feels weighed down by its own clout. [25 Sep 2006, p.43]

Andy's humiliations as a minor celebrity aren't quite as funny as was his earlier shame at being a nobody, but as a satire of showbiz vanity, Extras can still be described as (what else?) stellar. [29 Jan 2007, p.43]

[It] looks like Sex and the City relocated to Northern Exposure. [18 Sep 2006, p.39]

Path sometimes feels like 24 downsized into The Office. [18 Sep 2006, p.39]

Well, a mil doesn't go far these days, and neither does this series. [4 Sep 2006, p.41]

With sharp camera work, pulsating music and no tedious, gimme-an-Emmy closeups, it's like CSI at warp speed. [4 Sep 2006, p.41]

The case seems more like a good crusade for Nancy Grace than the starting point for a series. [28 Aug 2006, p.35]

The best thing from Season 1 remains the same: Mary-Louise Parker. [21 Aug 2006, p.37]

The show borrows from Northern Exposure, Twin Peaks, maybe the corporate drama Profit--too many to gauge how it'll develop. [24 Jul 2006, p.33]

The acting in the kickoff episode is awfully anemic, and that's no lie. [24 Jul 2006, p.33]

[A] rattling good series. [10 Jul 2006, p.39]

Unlike Monk, a gently comic character coping with mental illness, Roday's just an overgrown kid. [10 Jul 2006, p.39]

These joined stories never forge into one strong plot, but there's always Duvall. [3 Jul 2006, p.35]

[Viewers] may get a kick out of the mix of adrenaline and murk. [26 Jun 2006, p.41]

The show isn't all that different from Bravo's recent Real Housewives of Orange County, although the production values are much higher--everything has an expensive, carefully lit feminine gloss that perfectly matches the homemakers. [19 Jun 2006, p.37]

It's pleasant, but not promising enough to care about beyond a one-episode stand. [19 Jun 2006, p.37]

Scott's performance is totally believable, but that doesn't mean you want to ride shotgun with him in such a tired vehicle. [19 Jun 2006, p.37]

It's like a David Mamet parody of Roseanne. [19 Jun 2006, p.37]

Entourage remains supremely good-natured. [19 Jun 2006, p.37]

It's a gauge of how much reality programming has changed TV that I kept thinking that Mark Burnett could come in, push some situational hot buttons and produce a better show. [12 Jun 2006, p.39]

I kept wishing for a rose ceremony to perk things up. [8 May 2006, p.39]

An explosion of fireworks. [1 May 2006, p.39]

This is all nicely produced with mild offbeat tweaks along the way... But none of this is original either. [24 Apr 2006, p.39]

This new four-hour version... trims back the pageantry and tries for a degree of modern psychological realism. [17 Apr 2006, p.43]

The show is just as bad as several other recent WB shows (Modern Men, The Bedford Diaries), neither cartoonish enough nor realistic enough to register as anything more than a conceptual shell with a handful of dried peas rattling inside. [24 Apr 2006, p.39]

It's like Lisa Kudrow's Comeback without the satiric contempt. [10 Apr 2006, p.35]