Expedition Impossible, executive-produced by Mark Burnett ("Survivor"), is [not] the worst reality show ever (not by a long shot), but it reveals how challenging it must be for producers to introduce a whole mess of teams in a season premiere.

Crossbones doesn’t offer compelling enough drama to complement its banal brutality.

The problem with toning her down is that it means diluting the only thing that distinguishes Body of Proof from all the other crime procedurals, and what's left is a generic show with an above-average star.

There are several intriguing concepts built into Syfy’s Ascension, but the execution is not quite up to snuff in the first episode and infuriating by the conclusion.

The best new fall drama.

There's nothing wrong with any of this except that it doesn't feel fresh or new; there's no added, bewitching spark to a familiar concept.

Fans of teen soaps may enjoy Happyland for the lark that it is but veterans of the genre may also move on quickly: Even the happiest place on earth gets old after a while, and the same goes for what’s ultimately a likeable but fairly generic series.

While some aspects of the Magic City characters and their relationships are handled sloppily, others are too on the nose.

Press notes indicate these five folks impacted by the shockwave are “angels of the apocalypse,” but Messengers never comes out and says this. A general rule of thumb in TV reviewing: When press notes do a better job of explaining a show's intent than the show itself, viewers beware.

Potentially intriguing moments feel entirely manufactured, and the plots in between are paint-by-number plain with sometimes painfully bad dialogue.

Merlin looks, well, typically British with shoddy production values. Worse, it tells dull stories.

The show isn't helped by a two-hour premiere that states and re-states its premise too many times.

A children’s reality competition — one that would be at home on Nickelodeon. ... HBO Max waters down the brand with shows like this.

There are no television breakthroughs in Breakout Kings, a pretty pat procedural that tries a little harder than some of its predecessors.

The first two episodes of “Disenchantment” are more amusing than funny with entertaining enough puns and parodies of modern-day brands in the names of shops in the Kingdom of Dreamland.

Waco is a surprisingly pedestrian, paint-by-number docudrama. It’s fine but doesn’t soar like the two installments of FX’s “American Crime Story”: “People v. O.J. Simpson” and “The Assassination of Gianni Versace.”

King & Maxwell doesn't have much that's new to offer, but it's fine, forgettable, escapist summer fare.

Underemployed is one of the most enjoyably upbeat twentysomething scripted dramas to hit prime time in ages.

There’s not much to cracking “The Code,” which is a paint-by-numbers show if ever there was one.

[“The Violet Hour”] takes some unexpected and some predictable turns along the way, but it’s ultimately an enjoyable, charming story. ... “The Royal We” is less involving than “The Violet Hour.” Shelly’s story proves more compelling than Michael’s and the Romanoff theme is more pronounced and bizarre. ... [The third episode is] the second best of the first three episodes made available for review.

The first hour of Heroes answers enough questions and moves the story forward in such a way that a few "Huh?" moments won't matter as long as they're answered in short order and don't linger for too long.

A fun, frothy, limited-series period drama.

Unlike "Monk," which is essentially warmed-over "Columbo" with a more interesting character in the lead, In Plain Sight augments its plain premise with a full cast of colorful characters.

To be blunt, Starz’s Blunt Talk is spectacularly unfunny.

Madigan Men fails creatively for one simple reason. Its rhythms are all wrong for a sitcom filmed in front of a studio audience. This show is screaming to be a single camera comedy shot on film, similar to "Sex and the City." The humor is subtle. It doesn't warrant the guffaws of the studio audience that interrupt its natural flow. [6 Oct 2000, p.44]

Occasionally funny but mostly sort of dull, “The Moodys” seems unlikely to become a Christmas classic.

Another superhero show is overkill, but for what it is, Titans strong-arms its way into acceptance and occasionally more (the series’ depiction of a Beaver Cleaver-style family of killers, introduced in episode two, is especially clever).

When a wannabe TV thriller doesn’t work, the show devolves into a morass of characters making repeated bad decisions, like “Groundhog Day” but without the intentional comedy.