Once The Chair gets beyond producers bloviating, it’s a more interesting series about the two newbie directors.

BoJack Horseman gets the particulars of late '80s sitcoms right and has a few scattershot funny moments but it's mostly not a laugh riot.

The show does begin to fill in a few blanks, particularly the immortality angle, in its second episode, but it’s still a slow, sometimes tedious process.

It's possible Wizard Wars will get old quickly if too many of the tricks contestants come up with look the same, but in this first episode anyway it's a fairly entertaining hour of TV.

Darker and less escapist than TNT’s other new summer entry, “The Last Ship,” Legends offers a down-and-dirty hero with rough edges but surrounds him with a cadre of cleaner, less sullied colleagues, making for somewhat of a tonal mish-mash.

Someone more philosophical than Shatner might have ruminated on the nature of reality in the world where technology can make anything seem real. But the space cowboy opts instead for action -- often shot in sluggish slow motion -- and humor, some of which seems blissfully unintentional. [18 Jan 1994]

Provocative and occasionally insightful--except with Whitney Cummings brays with laughter--The Approval Matrix is like "The McLaughlin Group" for pop culture junkies.

Mostly it's the story of a sex-starved, immature, lazy guy who flings dog poop into his neighbor's yard. NBC has done something similar by inflicting this show on the viewing public. [24 Sept 2002, p.C-6]

Karen Sisco is a cool cocktail. It's not my taste, but it might be yours. [1 Oct 2003, p.E-1]

But when Braugher's Dr. Ben Gideon disappears, Gideon's Crossing becomes a long, languidly-paced trip through a Boston teaching hospital. [10 Oct 2000, p.D-8]

Viewers drawn to star-crossed romance are most likely to get absorbed in Outlander, which benefits from beautiful production design--great location work with filming in Scotland--but the show also suffers from some egregious exaggerations, especially the mustache-twirling Black Jack Randall, who couldn’t be more like Satan if he had pointy red horns.

Despite being underwhelmed by the premiere, I'm not ready to write "Tarzan" off just yet.

The pilot episode for "life" is really interesting; unfortunately two subsequent episodes are not as commendable. ... The direct address to the camera begins to grate, and the whole show is not different enough from teen shows of the past. [3 Oct 2004]

Once again, a reality show that could have been an entertaining diversion is ruined by an over-long running time.

So, the dialogue is cliche, the characters are cliche, the situations are cliche. What is there to recommend about this show? In the end, it's the twists that had me popping episodes into the VCR until I'd watched the first six. There's just enough of a thread -- whether it's clues that endanger Falcone's undercover operation or threats to his family -- to keep you wondering what will happen next.

The hybrid style of comedy and drama in "The Chronicle" doesn't quite jell. There's potential, but it hasn't been realized.

While the show doesn't have the cachet of, say, Marc Maron's series, it's a funny, entertaining comedy starring the offbeat comedy-folk duo of Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci.

All 10 episodes of the first season are directed by Mr. Soderbergh, who brings grittiness and the occasional odd camera angle but not much light to the proceedings (this is a seriously dark show with limited use of lighting). Writers/series creators Jack Amiel and Michael Begler introduce plenty of characters with interwoven, serialized storylines but there’s not much new under the dim sun in The Knick.

Maximum Bob maximizes its dark humor in satisfyingly loopy ways. [4 Aug 1998, p.E-1]

Partners is your basic odd couple comedy with Mr. Grammer attacking his part with his trademark zeal and Mr. Lawrence wandering through the motions in somnambulant fashion. It’s a stark energy contrast but a secondary problem for Partners, which mostly stumbles on predictable plotting that flows from pedestrian writing.

Fans of this hit-or-miss crime serial--and of Linden and Holder, in particular--may want to stream these final episodes just to see what kind of miserable state the show leaves poor Linden in, but The Killing long ago ceased to be required viewing for cultural currency.

A smart, deliberately paced, closed-ended miniseries.

Filmed in Austria, The Quest boasts high production values but its stated goal to populate a fictional, serialized fantasy world with reality show contestants doesn't find quite the right mix in early episodes.

Technically, Sharknado 2 is pretty much just as sloppy as the first film, with scenes that supposedly take place during a storm filled with streams of natural sunlight, but the amateurish quality is part of the franchise’s charm.

Humor is woven throughout The Dead Zone, particularly in scenes between Smith and his physical therapist, Bruce Lewis (John L. Adams), who helps update him on what happened during his long sleep. [16 June 2002, p.TV-5]

The first hour is a little slow, somewhat pacey at times--it clocks in at 56 minutes, not the usual 42 minutes, and will run one hour and 10 minutes with commercials--but it does a fine job of setting up the story and introducing the characters.

Producers Barney Rosenzweig and Ken Wales have graced their show with beautiful locations, poetic scripts and very good actors, particularly among the women. [3 Apr 1994]

The lead actors are slightly improved -- although Erik von Detten's hair is more expressive than his face -- but the story plods like one of the less graceful dinosaurs on screen.