This version, set in Paris, compensates with an atmosphere of chic rot--they have that over there--an increased body count and an excellent cast. [19 May 2014, p.44]

This is a formulaic but fairly competent series with delusions of grandeur.

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

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

The stunts are a confusing mix of bullets and blowups: Apocalypse Now on the scale of Wipeout. [3 Sep 2012, p.40]

No zest, no fun. [26 Mar 2007, p.37]

They're just bland. [2 Apr 2012, p.44]

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.

The narrative seems unduly baggy and stretched out, nothing so sharply defined as a triangle. More like a rhomboid. [12 Dec 2005, p.39]

What we have is a light, fast show about friends and couples who hang together, banter together and drink together. [8 Nov 2010, p.40]

This new hour-long comedy is a bustling, rather scattered affair. [15 Jul 2013]

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]

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]

The camera work is shaky, the music is gritty, and the endings aren't always happy. But the fact that you can almost smell the B.O. on some of the people piling into that truck makes it a raw, more real alternative to the usual sugary sweet. [21 Nov 2005, p.43]

The show makes little effort to create a sense of the potent clash--or erotic attraction--between cultures. [24 Feb 2014, p.38]

These people are all more ordinary and much less fabulously neurotic than you might have hoped. [11 Mar 2013, p.48]

The CW has established a reliable [network formula]: beautiful young things plus alienation plus supernatural powers plus slim-fit leather jackets. It works again in this new series. [11 Nov 2013, p.40]

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

The hot-potato miniseries dares to be unflattering. [11 Apr 2011, p.45]

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.

The show could be compelling, especially if the cast pulls off two decades' worth of aging. [12 Sep 2005, p.46]

Everyone works so hard--including Arnett, even if he never lets you see him sweat--that this comes very close to succeeding. [21 Oct 2013, p.48]

Director John Power establishes good pacing, as the mounting suspense alternates with scenes of banal normalcy and campy humor. The action is spread around on a solid supporting cast that includes Joanna Cassidy, E.G. Marshall, Allyce Beasley, John Ashton, Cliff DeYoung, Robert Carradine and Traci Lords...The thriller is like an attenuated, more pastoral version of the original 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But once it gets its hooks in you, you’ll be back for the conclusion the following night.

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

The show's main problem is that the guys, straddling the line between undateable-cute and undateable-unlikeable, more frequently fall into the latter camp. [2 Jun 2014, p.46]

FX's spy parody Archer is funnier, and AMC's short-lived Rubicon was a more sharply realized fantasy of work life in a shadow bureaucracy. This is a botched mission. [4 Apr 2011, p.50]

This enjoyable series from the Grey's Anatomy team is sort of Doctors Without Borders--who are also without too many clothes. [24 Jan 2011, p.41]

Flowers, both the book and the new movie, is completely absurd--if you want to gauge the absurdity, just know that one of the darkest secrets in the narrative involves a doughnut--but somehow also psychologically coherent. It has a grip.