Even this adventuresome idiosyncratic actor [Malkovich] doesn't seem to be having much fun. [2 Jun 2014, p.46]

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

This is like dramatizing War and peace without commenting on war or peace. [11 Mar 2013, p.46]

The series goes overboard on cutesy domestic details but as a Bret Bulletin, it should gratify and reassure his fans. [1 Nov 2010, p.42]

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.

Weeds feels like a stoned Desperate Housewives: The pupils are dilated wide, as if able to pick out in sharp relief every detail of this suburban America, yet nothing really seems in focus at all.

There are rivalries and feuds and dangerous situations, as well as a complete lack of personality. [29 Oct 2012, p.38]

Shift is competent but useful mostly as a reminder to stay healthy at all costs and avoid this sort of place. [9 Jun 2014, p.34]

This is a well-constructed, old-school sex farce. [15 Nov 2011, p.43]

Average.

The odd-couple act is funny at times, but one episode is plenty for all but confirmed Buseyphiles.

A wiry, tired jitteriness has crept in. [24 Oct 2011, p.48]

Oh, what a tangled web Carnivále weaves–maybe too tangled for its own good.

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.

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

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.

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

This show needs to make the supernatural seem less ordinary.

Sometimes compelling and sometimes too lurid to take.

Sort of a Real Housewives with saddles. [16 Dec 2013]

The group dynamics are worth observing for a while, but when the women go into catfight mode, the show slides into reality-TV routine.

John Ritter's death last September left a huge hole at the center of this sitcom. ABC chose to prop it up rather than shut it down, a decision that's looking increasingly unfortunate.

There are enough positive signs in the two-hour premiere that I'll probably take a look ... when the series moves to its regular time period.

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

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.

Anyone who saw Team America, the movie send-up of all things Bruckheimerian, will find E-Ring hard to take too seriously. [24 Oct 2005, p.41]

Gilbert seems like the one you'd most like the one you'd like to have in your actual mom's group. The others, not so much. [15 Nov 2010, p.43]

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