Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Scores

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For 1,785 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 42% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 54% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 7.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average TV Show review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 Mrs. America: Season 1
Lowest review score: 0 Killer Instinct: Season 1
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 868 out of 868
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 868
  3. Negative: 0 out of 868
868 tv reviews
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  1. The Daily Show with Trevor Noah: Season 1
    Some of his jokes--about the pope’s privates, AIDS and Whitney Houston’s relationship with crack--probably gave an equal number of viewers reason for concern about taste, or elation that Mr. Noah will not pull punches. Senior Mars correspondent Roy Wood Jr. (“Sullivan & Son”) made a strong first impression joking about which black celebrities might get a chance to visit Mars.... Mr. Noah’s least interesting segment was an interview with comic actor Kevin Hart.
  2. Terra Nova: Season 1
    Terra Nova walks a fine line and how well it manages to stay on that path will likely determine its ultimate success or failure.
  3. Little Women (2018): Season 1
    Warm, welcoming and occasionally tear-jerking, this three-hour production goes down like a warm glass of milk at bedtime.
  4. Bored to Death: Season 1
    Sunday's premiere is a little dull, but future episodes have more entertainment value. Still, you have to be a fan of neuroses humor for Bored to have much comedic impact.
  5. Claws: Season 1
    There’s a lot to like about TNT’s dark comedy/​crime drama Claws, including a terrific cast of women playing some unusual-for-TV characters. But the show would be stronger if it had a more unique story engine to drive its plots.
  6. Luther: Season 5
    The new season, written by series creator Neil Cross, has multiple callbacks to season one (the denouement brings things full circle) and fills in the blanks on where Alice has been and on her relationship with Luther, perhaps with too much information at times (allusion and mystery works better for their relationship than flat-out explanation).
  7. Hot in Cleveland: Season 1
    The show is unlikely to win Emmys but it is worth a few chuckles, spurred on by actresses in an age bracket not generally associated with leading roles on network sitcoms.
  8. The Office: Season 9
    most importantly, The Office is generally funnier than it was last season.
  9. Now Apocalypse: Season 1
    Now Apocalypse is bizarre and will certainly be off-putting to many. For others, surely a smaller audience, there’s some titillating fun to be had in this guilty pleasure’s kinky weirdness.
  10. Sense8: Season 1
    The problem with Sense8 is that it’s glacially paced and not nearly as riveting as it thinks it is.
  11. Home Before Dark: Season 1
    [Brooklynn] Prince is a real find and Hilde’s relationship with her father forms a heartwarming backbone for the series. But the tone is confusing: Too dark to be a family show, even though it has a family at the core, “Home Before Dark” offers a dark mystery plot instead.
  12. Champions: Season 1
    Mr. Totah steals the show with his witty retorts and Mr. Favreau makes Matthew likable despite his naiveté. The rest of the cast, consisting mostly of the gym family, have yet to come into focus through three episodes made available for review.
  13. The World According to Jeff Goldblum: Season 1
    Fans of Goldblum will enjoy the half-hour “World According to Jeff Goldblum” because viewers get a concentrated dose of his personality but beyond that interest may vary based on the topic.
  14. Kitchen Confidential: Season 1
    Backstage antics are what's supposed to make "Kitchen Confidential" hilarious, but instead the characters just come off as juvenile.
  15. Up All Night: Season 1
    It's a familiar concept that elicits some minor laughs.
  16. Servant: Season 1
    “Servant” is a tough show to embrace. Dorothy is an insufferable, emasculating, high-strung local TV news reporter. Sean is a grumpy, unsupportive husband and snooty chef who thinks lobster ice cream is a good idea. They’re both miserable people, not characters a viewer would want to spend time with.
  17. Titus: Season 1
    With its emphasis on dysfunction, Titus allows for dramatic moments that actually ring true. But they're few and far between in this show punctuated by flashbacks that interrupt the narrative flow. Titus suffers from a TV version of Attention Deficit Disorder, similar to the tangents on Fox's "Family Guy" but a lot less funny. [20 March 2000]
    • Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
      • Posted Dec 2, 2019
  18. Duncanville: Season 1
    While there’s sometimes a sameness to Fox’s recent animation efforts — comedies centered on families filled with oddballs — that doesn’t necessarily diminish the laughs. Newcomer “Duncanville” certainly prompts multiple guffaws in its first two episodes.
  19. Love Monkey: Season 1
    A thoroughly enjoyable series, the kind that makes you smile throughout and occasionally burst out laughing.
  20. BH90210: Season 1
    “BH90210” offers a delicious, entertaining return fans will want to gorge themselves on at least initially.
  21. The Michael J. Fox Show: Season 1
    This comedy has its moments, particularly in scenes featuring Ms. Brandt and Mr. Fox, but too often the stories, as in Thursday’s 9:30 episode feel like they’re straight out of Sitcom 101.
  22. Life (2007): Season 1
    It gets bogged down by so many procedural elements that all the character moments get squished and forced out around the edges, resulting in an uninteresting blob of an overly familiar TV show.
  23. Saving Grace: Season 1
    Writer/creator Nancy Miller ("Any Day Now") imbues the show with touches both subtle and a little overwrought but the divine "Grace" still offers stronger characters and better stories than many other summer series.
  24. Covert Affairs: Season 1
    Pretty much every character and character trait will be old-hat to regular TV viewers but director Tim Matheson makes the pilot episode hang together pretty well.
  25. The Big C: Season 2
    The Big C feels much more alive, even though it's a show about a woman, Cathy (Laura Linney), who's dying of stage 4 cancer.
  26. Falling Skies: Season 2
    It's not deep, meaningful TV, but Falling Skies is OK summer entertainment for fans of breezy, things-blow-up-easy programming.
  27. The Librarians (2014): Season 1
    The Librarians lacks the fun of the first film--seeing Flynn learn to be an adventurer --and feels predictable and rote.
  28. Whiskey Cavalier: Season 1
    Viewers have seen all these elements before, but in “Whiskey Cavalier” they’re deployed in a fun, fast-moving way that the show and the charm of its leads is hard to resist.
  29. Life's Too Short: Season 1
    The show conjures the most laughs when Mr. Gervais is on screen, but his presence doesn't mesh naturally with Warwick's world.
  30. High School Musical: The Musical: The Series: Season 1
    All the best moments are in that [trailer] preview and everything else is OK but very much a tween show with higher, streaming service-level production values.
  31. Trophy Wife: Season 1
    With its title and premise, Trophy Wife is not an immediately likable show but some of the jokes land well and the kid characters are fun.
  32. The Glades: Season 1
    Sunday's pilot episode introduces a love interest (Kiele Sanchez) and also offers a plot that takes a surprising left turn. It's a welcome detour but with such standard-issue characters, it will be difficult for The Glades to stand out.
  33. Hotel Hell: Season 1
    Hotel Hell is entertaining enough if you're not too picky about overproduced "reality" shows.
  34. Making History: Season 1
    The pilot has its intermittently amusing moments, but episode two, where the trio foments the American Revolution using 2016-era NRA tactics, proves stronger. A third episode involving travel to Al Capone’s Chicago, circa 1919, is fairly lackluster.
  35. Breaking Greenville: Season 1
    It's actually the supporting characters who make Breaking Greenville the most fun.
  36. Strike Back: Season 1
    Gratuitous elements aside, Strike Back is a decent enough cops 'n' terrorists drama.
  37. Threshold: Season 1
    There's too much emphasis on fictional scientific theories and not enough character development to make the few scares in "Threshold" worth a two-hour commitment.
  38. One Dollar: Season 1
    The first episode of “One Dollar” wallows in the struggles of several sad sack characters and jumps around a confusing amount as it introduces the unwieldy, large cast, but the show becomes more engrossing in episodes two and three. “One Dollar” hits its stride by episode six, proving it’s a worthy addition to the Peak TV era.
  39. SMILF: Season 1
    It’s an admirable portrait of a character in a social class that’s underrepresented on TV, but it’s more depressing than entertaining. The struggle is real--but it’s not funny.
  40. The New Adventures of Old Christine: Season 1
    The writing in "Old Christine" is occasionally funny in a low-key way, but too often the show is a bore.
  41. Revolution: Season 1
    The pilot is a pretty solid hour of television, setting up the show's premise and in several instances defying TV norms with plot twists viewers won't see coming.
  42. Scandal: Season 1
    If only what's new about Scandal was supported by something better than blah writing, ludicrous situations and cardboard characters.
  43. Nurse Jackie: Season 6
    At one time, it was possible to enjoy Nurse Jackie even for viewers who were over Jackie's drama because the supporting cast was so much fun. There's something less entertaining about them these days, too. Their plots sometimes feel like a stretch, as if the writers are grasping for stories for them.
  44. Forky Asks a Question: Season 1
    Three-minute shorts featuring the easily distractible “Toy Story 4” character, are quite funny.
  45. Barbershop: Season 1
    Pretty funny. Pretty profane, too, but still funny, and a better-realized weekly program than last week's Showtime comedy premiere, "Weeds."
  46. Conan (2010): Season 1
    Conan O'Brien debuted his new talk show, Conan, on TBS last night and it didn't feel all that different from the show O'Brien debuted last year on NBC under "The Tonight Show" banner.
  47. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
    It’s a role that could fall into caricature, but Ms. Winfrey brings vulnerability and believability to the part. Henrietta Lacks also benefits from a strong supporting cast. ... The film, directed by George C. Wolfe (“Lackawanna Blues”), stumbles most profoundly in the way it wraps up. The conclusion to the 90-minute film comes too quickly with an abrupt shift in tone.
  48. Hostages: Season 1
    The series does hint at Carlisle's motivation, and maybe the show will get more interesting once his reasons for wanting the president dead are revealed, but the pilot doesn't exactly demand viewers tune in for episode two.
  49. Better With You: Season 1
    Better With You is a genuinely funny, well-acted traditional sitcom reminiscent of "Dharma & Greg" and other past successful romantic comedies.
  50. Life in Pieces: Season 1
    It’s not as well done and not nearly as funny or relatable [as Modern Family].
  51. The Carmichael Show: Season 1
    The Carmichael Show improves as it goes, especially when veteran performers Loretta Devine and David Alan Grier come on screen.
  52. The Tudors: Season 1
    A highly entertaining and addictive costume drama.
  53. Law & Order: Los Angeles: Season 1
    After watching the first two episodes it's a little difficult to say what the show will be on a weekly basis because each of the first two episodes plays like the pilot for two different TV series.
  54. Avenue 5: Season 1
    HBO made the first five episodes available for review, and in the early going “Avenue 5” doesn’t entirely work but neither is it the disaster that befalls the show’s ship and passengers.
  55. Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Season 1
    The first two half-hour episodes, airing at 9 and 9:30 p.m. Friday, are less raucous and seemingly more adult than the film. There's more attention to character development; Jabba the Hutt's flamboyant uncle isn't anywhere to be found.
  56. Full Circle: Season 1
    It’s an interesting construction; “La Ronde”-style storytelling is not something seen regularly in prime-time so for the uniqueness of the form viewers can be grateful. But the same setting and two-character focus in every episode makes for a somewhat stifling viewing experience compared to the typical prime-time drama.
  57. Girl Meets World: Season 1
    A cute half-hour that capably introduces new characters and sets the table for the new series.
  58. Touch: Season 1
    Touch feels like yet another series--last week it was Alcatraz--that seemed like a better idea for a one-shot movie than a weekly TV series.
  59. Undercovers: Season 1
    He's dashing, she's beautiful, and the show is fairly entertaining. But Undercovers adds nothing to the spy show genre.
  60. The Drew Carey Show: Season 1
    Though Carey has friends, his show is no 'Friends'-style ensemble comedy. It's closer to a blue-collar 'Seinfeld,' a star vehicle purpose-built to exploit its star's best talents, which it does quite effectively. [13 Sep 1995]
    • Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
      • Posted Jul 15, 2013
  61. The Approval Matrix: Season 1
    Provocative and occasionally insightful--except with Whitney Cummings brays with laughter--The Approval Matrix is like "The McLaughlin Group" for pop culture junkies.
  62. Doll & Em: Season 1
    Much of the comedy comes out of that type of awkwardness but Doll & Em is less a comedy-of-the-uncomfortable series (a la a female "Curb Your Enthusiasm") and more just kind of slow and boring.
  63. Alphas: Season 1
    The problem with the show is that it's pretty dull, particularly if you've ever watched any of the similar shows that preceded Alphas. None of the characters feel new, nor do the situations.
  64. True Blood: Season 1
    True Blood is a sexy affair that sets up an entirely believable world where humans and vampires co-exist. It's a soap, to be sure, but a soap with an eye for social commentary.
  65. The L Word: Season 1
    The L Word is a better written series than "Queer as Folk" and seems less exploitative. Sex is a predominant theme, but relationships are presented as more important. Where the "Queer" boys often couple only for pleasure, most of the L Word characters are equally, if not more, interested in love. [16 Jan 2004, p.W-37]
    • Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
      • Posted Apr 3, 2014
  66. House of Lies: Season 1
    House of Lies is not a revolutionary show, but it is a fun study of men behaving badly.
  67. All American: Season 1
    It’s a well-made teen drama pilot that traffics (mildly) in some social issues and ends with a welcome, soapy wallop.
  68. Benched: Season 1
    Te pilot episode was written by Michaela Watkins ("Trophy Wife") and Damon Jones ("Peep Show"), who write to Ms. Coupe's comedic strengths while also peppering the background with amusing comic gags (viewers who pay closer attention will reap the most laughs from "Benched"). A second episode sent for review was less funny than the pilot and the plot was also a head-scratcher.
  69. United Stats of America: Season 1
    United Stats of History feels like it's a show that wants to be 30 minutes that's been stretched to fill an hour.
  70. Young Sheldon: Season 1
    In many ways this show plays like a cross between “The Wonder Years” and last fall’s “Speechless” only in this one the mother character is likable. Zoe Perry, daughter of Laurie Metcalf (who plays Sheldon’s mom on “BBT”), is a standout in a pilot episode that’s warm and embraceable but not yet essential viewing. But it may get there.
  71. The Newsroom: Season 3
    The show was never entirely believable and the conceit of having episodes set during actual events--where the characters and/or viewer perceptions benefit from hindsight--felt like a cheat even though it could sometimes also be thought-provoking. The third-season premiere doesn’t shy away from this.
  72. The 100: Season 1
    The 100 offers up a well-conceived society on the Ark that brims with conflict and moral dilemmas that’s paired with the unexpected discoveries of frontier exploration on Earth.
  73. Outsiders: Season 1
    Jousting on ATVs aside, there’s not a lot of exciting, forward plot momentum in the first few episodes, but later episodes spend more time with characters in town, and episode four includes a plot twist that will either make viewers sit up and take notice or prompt them to turn off the TV.
  74. Survivors: Season 1
    The first episode runs two hours and sets up all the characters, their relationships and backgrounds. It presents a serialized show with a lot of potential for growth and interesting plot possibilities, especially considering a scene at the end of the premiere that raises a whole host of questions.
  75. Vicious: Season 1
    There’s an odd-couple vibe to Vicious, though it’s also a big, broad comedy reminiscent of Frasier if Niles and Frasier were a bickering gay couple instead of brothers.
  76. Killing Eve: Season 3
    The writers use a contrivance viewers will see coming miles away to pull I’m-done-with-all-this Eve back into the game. It’s an eye-roll-worthy plot turn. The acting remains impeccable, the costumes amaze, the locations offer beauty shots galore. Maybe for some viewers that’s enough. But it’s tough to get past the unbelievable relationship at the show’s core.
  77. Marry Me: Season 1
    Taken on its own, Marry Me offers a fast-moving, often hilarious debut episode that traffics in pop culture references as it establishes Annie as the loon and Jake as the tolerant, abiding guy who loves her.
  78. Devious Maids: Season 1
    In its early going, it's a fun, summer TV frivolity--an entertaining enough hour of TV that sneaks in moments of social satire.
  79. Firefly: Season 1
    If Firefly weren't from Joss Whedon, the talented, respected creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," this review would probably be a lot more dismissive. Because of his track record -- six seasons of "Buffy," five of them good; the successful and ultimately distinctive spinoff series "Angel" -- Firefly gets the benefit of the doubt despite an inauspicious debut. It's not good, it's not bad, it's just so-so. [20 Sept 2002, p.40]
    • Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
      • Posted Feb 23, 2013
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Lost Valentine
    When Betty White is on screen, the emotions are real, and she's on screen a lot. It's a safe bet that tears will be shed.
  81. The Lying Game: Season 1
    The Lying Game is not great television by any means but it's an adequate teen soap filled with attractive performers playing characters much younger than their actual ages, something the target audience for this type of series has come to expect.
  82. Ground Floor: Season 1
    Most of the young, relatively untested actors in Ground Floor are not nearly as talented at creating endearing characters; in the first two episodes the characters are mostly just ciphers.
  83. Descendants: Season 1
    The dull Descendants.... just seems like a widget--albeit an occasionally cute, harmless widget--churned out by the Disney machine.
  84. Alternatino with Arturo Castro: Season 1
    A funny, fresh comedy half-hour, “Alternatino” offers some welcome laughs amid the drama-heavy diet of summer TV.
  85. Crisis: Season 1
    It's marginally more engrossing/less ridiculous in its pilot than CBS's fall flop, "Hostages."
  86. New Amsterdam: Season 1
    In Tuesday's pilot, New Amsterdam reveals itself as a pedestrian cop show with a vampire-like lead character
  87. Encore!: Season 1
    The series feels padded and the lack of Kristen Bell’s presence – she does introductions for all the episodes but only appears in a few – is a disappointment.
  88. Hell on Wheels: Season 1
    Hell on Wheels is not a bad show, but it's also not engrossing.
  89. Factory: Season 1
    It's a mixed bag of un-PC attempts at blue collar humor as four guys yak and try to avoid doing their jobs.
  90. Kevin From Work: Season 1
    A funny enough comedy with a predictable premise that manages to surprise by often taking an unpredictable path.
  91. The New Yorker Presents: Season 1
    I watched two episodes and with the exception of one riveting segment on security failures pre-9/11, I was bored out of my gourd.
  92. Traffic Light: Season 1
    Traffic Light seems to want to be a male "Sex and the City" or "Entourage" without the Hollywood backdrop. But the scrapes these guys get into are more recognizable and more cliched than what the "Entourage" guys encounter.
  93. Mob City: Season 1
    After two hours, Mob City gets its hooks into viewers and should leave many begging for more. But it takes some time to get there.
  94. So NoTORIous: Season 1
    The biggest problem with "so noTORIous" is that the laughs, when they come, are few and far between.
  95. Why Women Kill: Season 1
    If you’ve been missing “Desperate Housewives,” the new CBS All Access show “Why Women Kill,” debuting Aug. 15, is the series you’ve been waiting to see. But if you were over “Desperate Housewives” before it finished its eight-season run, well, “Why Women Kill” is kind of more of the same.
  96. Smash: Season 2
    Judging by three episodes sent for review, the[se] course corrections work.
  97. Satisfaction (2014): Season 1
    Although the subject matter is darker than usual for USA, series creator Sean Jablonski manages to find lighter moments so that Satisfaction is not a depress-a-thon.
  98. Family Guy: Season 4
    Always an acquired taste -- one most likely to be acquired by the politically incorrect -- this new "Guy" is just as rude, attention deficit disordered and funny as past episodes. [28 Apr 2005]
    • Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
      • Posted Jul 10, 2013
  99. Detroit 1-8-7: Season 1
    Detroit 1-8-7 is disappointingly generic. It's not a show that compels viewers to tune in on a weekly basis, but die-hard cop show fans may be satisfied.
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