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.

Stunningly dull.

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.

Feels like a retread.

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

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.

For all its "look what we can get away with" grandstanding and scalpel-sharp wit, Nip/Tuck succeeds best when it deftly pierces the heart.

The show remains intelligently written and remarkably well acted, but there's a sense that it's marking time.

Once The Shield grabs you, it's awfully hard to turn away.

Once you grow accustomed to the trash talk, however, the series draws you deeper and deeper into a little world where the law holds no sway and right is trodden in the mud.

[Steve Buscemi's] appearance is the occasion for exposition that's not as smooth as we'd expect from this extraordinary series. Yet the season premiere has moments so compelling that you'll be irresistibly drawn back into the family business.

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.

It wouldn't be a crime if the contestants were consciously showing their dramatic side, but there ought to be a law against some tricks of the reality trade.

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.

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

The L Word is hot, to be sure.

Hilariously peculiar.

It's an appropriate time to ask how the first spinoff is doing. The answer is quite well—if you're a David Caruso fan.

It's searching, witty, lacerating, poetic, profound—and, yes, overstuffed.

Though not much of it seems real, we're calling this a reality show for want of a better label. FOX uses the term "unscripted comedy," which would fit better if the series were funny.

Sometimes compelling and sometimes too lurid to take.

It's the season's best new series, period.

The series that strains our nerves and our credulity returns with more hour-by-hour suspense, and amazingly it still works.

This show needs to make the supernatural seem less ordinary.

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

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.

Promising ... Like [Out of Sight's Jennifer] Lopez, Gugino is a looker who can be tough, but she makes the character more open, more alive.

If you prize originality, this new series will underwhelm you. ... What's surprising is the goodly number of laughs it does offer.