The show has a very sure grip on how these minor events, accompanied by small satisfactions, play out in a household of two middle-aged parents, two teenage kids and one inscrutable 9-year-old. [13 Dec 2010, p.46]

The jokes hop all over the place but the show, like Chloe, is refreshingly wild. [16 Apr 2012, p.49]

This provocatively, almost boisterously violent thriller bolts into action with a clever premise and sustains it with good, unexpected jolts. [28 Jan 2013, p.43]

I like how the show shifts from sitcom laughs to soap opera tremors. [21 Feb 2011, p.45]

Her own unhappy childhood haunts her, giving the mommy thread a weird poignancy. [7 Mar 2011, p.38]

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

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

Both shows [NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles] have an old-fashioned but relaxing simplicity, with an upbeat emphasis on the value of being a team. It's family entertainment. [21 Mar 2011, p.43]

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.

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.

If you automatically expect a new HBO series to be edgy or innovative, you'll be disappointed in this one. It's basically just a sitcom—but it has the advantage of being funny.

The banter is warm and fast and easy, and the sisters' personality types balance out well. [17 Oct 2005, p.39]

Though Tommy's conversations with Jimmy seem like a glib gimmick, Rescue Me redeems itself with rough firehouse humor and a realistic depiction of the emergencies faced by the crew.

The '70s Show has a jarringly '90s slacker sensibility. Still there are some very funny moments.

This is the most original new cartoon series I've seen since SpongeBob SquarePants arrived in 1999. If only it were as funny.

The melodrama of it all is tasty--a jumbo macaroon. [27 Aug 2012, p.43]

A fun, body-flinging, old-fashioned epic.... As Kublai Khan, British actor Benedict Wong gives an impressive performance, one of the best of the year: You absolutely believe his ruthlessness, his power and his calculating thoughtfulness. As Marco Polo, on the other hand, Italian actor Lorenzo Richelmy, who looks like a more lyrical Emile Hirsch, mostly has to be put up with.

Even though I didn’t approach it with a genre fan’s enthusiasm, I will allow that this remake offers its share of scares.

It wasn't perfect by any means--switching between live singing and all those filmed ads killed just about any theatrical energy and flow well before the three hours were up--but the production was colorful and glitch-free. Allison Williams of Girls made a much more committed Peter than Carrie Underwood did a Maria von Trapp in last year's endless Sound of Music Live!, and Christopher Walken's extremely peculiar Captain Hook was a triumph.

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

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.

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.

Subtlety is not a hallmark of the writing, nor of Christopher Rich's performance as Reba's faithless spouse.

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.

The first two outings are uneven, but watch for a hilarious future episode in which Arthur meets a support group for disgruntled superhero sidekicks.

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.

Alternating—or rather, wavering—between frightening and funny, the show has yet to establish a clear identity beyond its-status as a post-teenage teammate of The WB's popular Buffy the Vampire Slayer.