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.

Harmless fluff that won't impress its intended pre-teen audience, but they'll watch anyway. [20 Sept 2002, p.40]

Science fiction often is at its best when it raises big questions, but early on it's unclear what the true source of Miracle Day is and where that will take this batch of Torchwood episodes.

For the most part, the movie is a candy-colored whirl through the shoulder-padded late 1980s.

It's not a bad show, merely ho-hum. Perhaps it will have greater appeal to people who liked math in school, but to me "NUMB3RS" just seems like a "CSI" clone with the quadratic formula tossed in for good effect. [23 Jan 2005]

Swingtown isn't just misguided because it's on the wrong network. The show's bigger problem is that the resident "squares" are much more interesting characters than the swingers at the core.

Fahey too often seems cocky and callow. He's so sure of himself, and so superior to everyone else, you could find yourself identifying with the criminal. Luckily, Fahey's performance in the closing moments shows promise for a more restrained future. Let's hope the producers noticed the improvement. [31 Jan 1995]

Cinema Verite dramatizes the making of "An American Family," but it dwells too long on the setup and doesn't spend nearly enough time on the public response to the program and the impact that reaction (much of it negative) had on the Louds.

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.

Mostly it looks down its nose at almost all of its strident-in-their-own-way characters. Juliette Lewis (“Cape Fear”) enlivens the series as a crunchy hippie who clashes with Kathryn, but ultimately she’s as much a caricature as all the others.

Malcolm cut off communication with his dad 10 years ago but turns to him for consultation on a new case. These scenes are far less entertaining than those with Malcolm’s mother, played by “Scandal” star Bellamy Young, hamming it up. These moments give “Prodigal Son” an occasional “Castle” vibe.

Imagine a Don Draper-less, bland, unsurprising sequel to “Mad Men” and “American Woman” comes pretty close. All the plot twists are telegraphed.

The rules explained by the angel (Kimberly Hebert Gregory, replacing Cristela Alonso from the pilot) are both complicated and nebulous, and it’s not clear what Kevin is supposed to do beyond being a do-gooder. Maybe “Touched by a Guy Touched by an Angel” is what this show is going for?

Whenever Mr. Highmore is on screen, “The Good Doctor” compels, but he’s surrounded by standard-issue medical show characters and plots.

Ridiculous and filled with hospital show cliches.

When Amazon’s Lore allows Mr. Mahnke to just tell a story, it’s pretty compelling. But when the show dives into dramatic re-creations of stories, Lore generally falters.

Other than Hailey and Happy all the characters are a different shade of terrible, which gets kind of boring unless you’re tuning in only for the fight scenes that invariably end in bloodbaths.

The pilot doesn’t even really play into the absurdity of war a la “Catch-22.” It’s unclear what “68 Whiskey” is trying to do but whatever it is, it’s not doing it well.

It’s all quite predictable and dull with a pilot episode that suffers under the weight of technobabble-filled exposition.

Why ABC thinks American viewers will care about what happens to a TV scriptwriter who brings turmoil and heartbreak upon herself is beyond me. Maybe it’s the Kyra Sedgwick of it? Even “Closer” fans may have a hard time cozying up to this character.

Sweetbitter certainly presents recognizable characters, situations and reactions that may have an appeal to young people who are living on their own for the first time in a big city, but it has precious little new to add to that familiar experience.

A serviceable if predictable single-camera comedy.

In between firefights and car crashes, the clichés pile up quicker than dead bodies.

It turns out Erica’s betrayal was not diabolical, but the excuse she offers is weak and only proves the whole series is based on a preposterous contrivance.

Bloated and still inconclusive, the new “Unsolved Mysteries” benefits from Netflix’s usual high production values for nonfiction programming, but there’s no reason for these episodes to drone on as they do; there’s not enough story to support their running time.

Alas, imagining the concept is funnier than anything in the show’s early episodes, which mine stale humor from the pitfalls of military bureaucracy. ... Perhaps with time to grow the characters in “Space Force” will develop into something worthwhile.

There’s nothing epic about Nightflyers. It’s basically a haunted spaceship story--filled with what has to be a record number of uses of the F-word on basic cable--that does a poor job in its first hour giving viewers reasons to care about the characters before putting them in jeopardy.

Some of the supporting characters, including Victoria Hughes (Barrett Doss) and Dean Miller (Okieriete Onaodowan), make decent first impressions. But the whole enterprise feels so similar to “Grey’s”--co-workers as family, love triangle, heroics on the job--as to be unessential, which programming in the Peak TV era cannot afford to be.