The show is gorgeously produced and spectacularly violent but its success depends chiefly on Buscemi....A brilliant, brutally funny performance. [20 Sep 2010, p.51]

Smits is breezily bold, but the show feels fussy--flushed out with "interesting" details and characters. [20 Sep 2010l p.54]

The show promises to be sexy fun. [6 Sep 2010, p.47]

The end product should be called Hellkittens--not bad, but its tiny claws neither grip nor rip. [13 Sep 2010, p.47]

Here's one of the most offbeat new shows of the new season. Also one of the best. [13 Sep 2010, p.48]

It's a good show, powerfully acted--especially by Katy Segal as tough mama Gemma--and true to its convictions. [20 Sep 2010, p.52]

Despite the backstory, the humor is conventionally jolly. [30 Aug 2010, p.38]

The show is cluttered with cutesy sidekicks, including Gabourey Sidibe as a student and John Benjamin Hickey as Cathy's homeless brother. But Linney's a big deal. [30 Aug 2010, p.37]

Season 6 staggers from incident to incident as Nancy and family run from their enemies--and the authorities. [13 Sep 2010, p.50]

This is competent reality fare, but coming after the besotted Ali and Roberto, it's like tying cans of nitroglycerin to a honeymooner's car. [23 Aug 2010, p.35]

Sorry, this one doesn't cick. [9 Aug 2010, p.35]

Challenging but engrossing.

This makeover series isn't breaking any new ground: A wallflower, repotted and pruned, blooms overnight into an assured woman willing to tackle her dream date. The real asset here is its charming British host, style adviser Louise Roe.

The inspiration can be heavy-handed, but how can you not feel for the couple?

Season 4 launches with an episode focused on TV's most mysterious ad executive-and since Jon Hamm's watchful yet charismatic performance makes the show tick, that's excellent.

Annie calls for some sort of inner steel, but Perabo looks less like an untested agent than an overwhelmed intern.

Their interaction is friendly, if mildly teasing, professional and catfight-free. This allows the show to have the relaxing, unchallenging pleasures of good fluff even when the premiere is actually going a bit heavy on the gore.

The premiere us well-shot, humidly atmospheric, but a little more urgency would be appreciated.

There's no real awe or fear-just a relatively safe Haven. So, no go.

This is a carefully assembled, emotionally attuned drama about obese teens stuck in a summer weight-loss camp.

The premiere feels sort of like "The Closer" but doesn't clinch the deal. I'm just not sure what to make of Jason Lee without his Jason Lee-ishness. But there's a crackle of eccentric touches, including an abundance of Elvis impersonators and the charmingly off-kilter Celia Weston as his mother.

Whether the show can figure out what to do with Madsen's semi-reformed brood is the challenge. Right now the show feels less like FX's recent, underrated The Riches than Brothers & Sisters set among the criminal element.

At a full, commercial-free hour, this can all start to drag a bit. But L.A. is strongly evoked as a casually sensual backdrop and-thank you!-that awful L Word theme music is gone.

When you're hot, you're hot-which is why having Betty White in the cast has generated an unusual amount of buzz for this TV Land sitcom. But her costars-ace comic actresses Wendie Malick, Jane Leeves, Valerie Bertinelli-are the ones who add sizzle to a not too promising vehicle.

Chef remains the model for cook-off competitions, balancing casual insight into culinary art with psychological snapshots of the aspiring chefs. This recipe can't be improved on.

Eclipsing even last summer's BBQ bacchanal involving an ancient spirit, the new season feels like one big undead sex party-a kinky alternate lifestyle where vampires and monsters do the nasty (and other violent acts) in roadhouses, backrooms, backwoods and the occasional antebellum mansion.

Fun enough, but the nastiness could be applied more heavily.