This series is usually more entertaining than most of the genre, so I was disappointed to note that the fifth-season contestants include Alison, the runner-up on another CBS reality show, last summer's Big Brother 4.

The show delivered more pure entertainment in the auditions than it has since the finalists became housemates and started the usual reality-show backbiting.

Valley starts well, with needling absurdities, but payoffs are few. [Apr 2014, p.50]

Bottom Line: Good beat, weak drama.

[A] half-decent start.

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.

The problem with this new series is not the star's performance but the writers' unwillingness to take the character far enough.

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

It's still an unabashed throwback—what folks used to call a shoot-'em-up.

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

There are some laughs here... but too often even the eccentricity seems formulaic.

Harsh Realm looks to be capably acted and artfully creepy, but I'm not sure I care to get involved in another dark, paranoid drama from Chris Carter.

Attractive as well as articulate, all these high schoolers qualify for some sort of advanced placement. They're easy to watch, just a little hard to believe.

Nothing too original is happening here.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Nothing in the opener is especially fresh or intriguing except the relationship between Ryan and Seth.

The framework [couples counseling] is cute but irrelevant: You don't need an analyst piecing together the relationship when that's the audience's job. [14 May 2012, p.44]

An uninvolving melodrama with a large undifferentiated cast.

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

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

The show... is partly improvised, a stunt used to richer effect on ABC's upcoming Sons & Daughters. [6 Mar 2006, p.41]

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]

The show offers genuine scares, but lines like "I already cried wolf once--you think they're gonna believe me?" cast a hokey spell. [31 Oct 2011, p.35]

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]