Some of the first-season bugs have been exterminated simply by recruiting young roommates who are more interesting and charismatic, people who smile and laugh a little more.

The animation is clunky (about on a par with The Pink Panther); the gags are gross and not even remotely funny.

Grows more opaque, tangled and macabre as it goes along.

The crime at the heart of the matter isn't quite as intriguing as the one Mirren faced first time around. But the actress is again superb as a woman tenaciously pursuing a demanding job.

The best ensemble cop drama since Hill Street Blues.

A capable cast makes this the best of Fox's dopey young adult melodramas.

Like The Next Generation, this show tends to be morally didactic. But also like its mother ship, Deep Space Nine is richly imagined, with good scripts and great visuals.

The jokes are, for the most part, more clever than funny.

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.

The scope is a little cramped but the writing is wonderfully droll.

Slick and often witty, this is a show with its high beams on. But the device of having Dey and Thomas directly address the camera isn't the only false note struck. The characters are thin, and the chemistry doesn't cook.

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.

This would just be another substandard sitcom, if not for its alarmingly sexist bent.

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.

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.

What it lacks is wit, depending instead on Lawrence to do shtick. He overacts terribly, hammily mugging for the camera.

Shandling's laid-back comic style dovetails with the dry writing, creating a series that's the clear victor in the talk show wars.

Few programs are as genuinely youthful in look and altitude.

It's the gleeful goriness that sets the series apart. This is a show with plenty of guts.

Makes a nice first impression but quickly wears out its welcome.

The show's comically choreographed mayhem is a difficult premise to sustain, like trying to stage a big bumper-car pileup again and again. So be sure to watch—and tape—this week's pilot directed by Lynch. It's a doozy.

As a social experiment, this project fizzles because of the imposing scrutiny (even the phone is tapped) and because of the artificial relationship foisted on these instant loftmates. But as television, it's rather intriguing.

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.

A crackling good British police procedural. ... The British accents and idioms can get dense, but don't let that throw you, you dozy punter.

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

An uninvolving melodrama with a large undifferentiated cast.

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 episodes have grown slower and schmaltzier since the gripping pilot, but this series is still as sweet as an egg cream made with Fox's U-Bet Chocolate Syrup.