Fortunately CSI: NY has something in common with its predecessors besides a taste for the distasteful: a solid lead performance.

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 color, pace and performance are vibrant, often crazily so. [10 Sep 2012, p.39]

If the musical element seems this strained in the pilot, when the vastly talented Randy Newman is the composer of all of the songs, one dreads to think how bad it will be after the show has settled in for a few weeks and is struggling for viable melodies.

At its best, Sirens has some of the emotional and comedic recklessness and shock of his FX comedy about firefighters, Rescue Me. Sirens needs to howl a little more. [10 Mar 2014]

It's an affable show, but at an hour long, it starts to feel like a slow dance that won't end. [12 Nov 2012, p.46]

Bell is key, so plainly direct and unstudied that we see the past through his eyes. [14 Apr 2014, p.50]

Williams is likable even when his character isn't rational.

West Wing politico Bradley Whitford reinvents himself for this entertaining free-for-all, a loose blend of buddy comedy and police action that's also an affectionate nod to series like Starsky & Hutch.

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 fun comes in watching the uncynical Adams learn to undercut everyone else's cunning. [27 Jun 2011, p.46]

Entertaining. But is it worth eight hours of your attention? Not unless you’re laid up with a bad flu bug you just can’t seem to shake.

Mad Love [is] a relationship sitcom with real chemistry. [21 Feb 2011, p.41]

This is essentially a dialogue between baffled attorney and baffling client, which makes for an arid 95 minutes. [1 Apr 2013]

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

Hennessy has the feistiness the lead role requires, and Miguel Ferrer bears watching as her tense, neurotic supervisor. Too bad the first couple of cases were too easily cracked.

It has some good jokes, but this overly familiar spoof lacks the strength to push the envelope. [2 Sep 2013]

The gutted-out city is perhaps the show's most compelling character. [26 Aug 2013, p.38]

What's surprising and even touching is that Fergie may not be a hot mess, but she's an appealingly human one. [20 Jun 2011, p.47]

Mount needs to run this thing, and he can't if he's the caboose. [27 Aug 2012, p.44]

Piers Morgan's first nights filling Larry King's suspenders weren't great....He's better--thorough, thoughtful--with serious figures like Rudolph Giuliani. [14 Feb 2010, p.40]

Louis-Dreyfus is going for breathless charm here, but this vehicle's in too much of a rush.

Wonderland grabs elements from the Lewis Carroll classic, throwing them down a rabbit hole and lets them land willy-nilly. [28 Oct 2013, p.42]

At a full, commercial-free hour, this can all start to drag a bit. But L.A. is strongly evoked as a casually sensual backdrop and-thank you!-that awful L Word theme music is gone.

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

The production is gorgeous and the tedium unrelenting. [8 Apr 2013, p.42]

If Caan grabs more screen time and the writers build on the hints of sexual chemistry between Danny and Nessa, I might place a small bet on this superslick series-provided Danny learns the virtue of occasional silence.

[A] fascinating reality hit. [28 Mar 2011, p.57]