Instead of wink-winking at the audience about its own cleverness, The Goodwin Games mostly keeps things moving along at a snappy pace, with jokes as well. When the show gets too pleased with its own eccentricity, though, it becomes grating.

If the plot is thin, the show does offer other pleasures, including the actors’ improv skills, revealed in subtle and hilarious flashes of genius.

While the mystery genre has a rich history of incisive social commentary animating a compelling investigation, this series struggles to balance an examination of women’s place in post-war Britain and a classic race-against-time mystery.

Bates Motel isn’t Hitchcock, and doesn’t try to be. But the show does make intelligent use of what you already know about Norma and Norman in their efforts to “start over.”

Despite character-based faults and multiple narrative cul-de-sacs, [Parade’s End] does come around to revealing the consequences of maintaining public status and reputation at the cost of personal realization.

It is often funny, but it could be funnier if it were wed to more coherent storytelling.

The result is disappointing, sensationalistic and silly.

Zero Hour‘s first episode ends on one hell of a promising cliffhanger, including a shock that comes out of nowhere but still makes sense. If director Pierre Morel can ask for a few more takes (occasional scenes feel like actors are still rehearsing) and if the script turns as strange as that episode-ending shock suggests it might, Zero Hour may actually be more new than recycled.

As the fifth season begins, Southland appears to be stronger for its ordeals. The ensemble is streamlined to the most compelling characters and the direction is crisp.

If Community has been an underappreciated gem for the past three years, its fourth season premiere is sadly lackluster. But if the Dean’s episode-ending prediction isn’t entirely convincing, it could be that Guarascio and Port just need more time.

The problem is that the story in between the songs is still inconsistent and muddled.

The dynamic here is already tired.

Cole is good and Price is evil. And neither one of them is remotely interesting.

As much as the series' pitch seems clear--it's another period series, with terrific design details, long story arcs, and complex performances--it is also something else, a reframing of what it might mean to be Americans, then and now.

Although the nature documentary elements are the focus, the added color of travel show features as well, as the general feeling of spontaneity (however carefully cultivated) adds a peculiar appeal to the package.

The Taste is a confusing show with humorless banter that does not inspire the audience to become invested in the contestants. It's doubtful that viewers will be coming back for seconds.

Referencing literary works and imitating horror films may seem derivative, but by drawing from the familiar, The Following obviates the need for extensive exposition and jumps right into the action.

The mix of appealing nerds and lack of truly grating nerds is calculated for viewers' comfort, but the first episode is decidedly bland, too. Viewers looking for a new take on the reality competition genre won't find it here.

Even though Archer does occasionally overwhelm its sharp wit with violent fight sequences or simplistic shocks, it usually recovers with a one-two punch of cool animation and skillful wordplay.

The rest of the show goes on to prize sweetness over superficiality.

1600 Penn's tone may be apolitical, but it is also very funny.

At last, Sasha is less a collection of TV teenager tropes and more convincingly a Sherman-Palladino creation.

For now, the Bowers and Joanna provide enough mystery to maintain our interest, but we're left wondering whether the show's compelling start is actually taking us somewhere, or if instead this, too, is only a deception.

[Marnie's] one element in the rich vein of personalities that The Hour only began to mine in its first season, and one of the many reasons the second season is looking very good indeed.

It's a lively conversation that's nicely balanced between oral history and behind the scenes anecdotes.

Intra-team melodrama doesn't distract from the film's focus so much as it illustrates it: again and again, the boys declare their need for payback.

At the same time [Eros Hoagland is taking pictures], his process is also the subject of a picture--shaped in part by the remarkable work of photographer and cinematographer Jared Moossy, who shoots all four episodes of Witness--a picture that shows both context and effect, the sort of broad view that might emerge from the most specific images.

Though she performs a heartfelt song about her mixed emotions, the implication being that Bobby's songs are lies and hers tell truth, the episode's ongoing comedy bits don't support this distinction.

Again and again, Ethel insists she doesn't like to "talk about" her self, doesn't like to be introspective. And so the film offers images for the rest of us to parse, public performances that may or may not reveal what we want to see.

American Horror Story: Asylum reintroduces the first season's nightmarish craziness but also sets it within a coherent basic history. It helps too that the new cast appears to be so tight.

No such show has come even near to Glee's success. Nashville may be the exception, with its clever, even cynical, mix of middle-aged crises and youthful ambitions set in country music's Mecca.

It's an ingenious first two minutes of a series premiere, actiony and exciting and legible enough.

This being The Good Wife, a show renowned for complicating what might seem obvious, Alicia's new position as a kind of moral compass leads to a new series of dilemmas. Some of these are predictably topical.

All that said, 666 Park Avenue is diverting enough, if hardly original.

The season opener, "Transilience Thought Modifier Unit-11," is so incomprehensible that it suggests a no-compromise posture for the remaining episodes. Which is exactly what the loyal fans want and deserve.

If Elementary is a standard detective procedural, it is at least well done. This is largely based on the strength of Miller, who brings a rejuvenating energy to a genre full of morose investigators

Unfortunately, the pilot doesn't suggest that there is anything more interesting at work here than a weak attempt to wring laughs out of aliens who are buffoons.

It just needs sharper writing, and the supporting cast needs to be developed. While Kaling and Messina are charming and work well together, the rest of the show needs to catch up.

Ben and Kate has the potential to be a similar sort of low-key, hangout show [like Cougar Town and Raising Hope] that's also very funny.

Some of this talent is visible in the premiere episode's poetic counterbalancing of empty landscapes and claustrophobic casino back-offices, and actors' convincing performances.... When it comes to plotting and scripting, though, Vegas is far less sure-footed.

It isn't just the concept that's unoriginal, but also the scripting. The show has an abundance of jokes, but few elicit more than a grin.

Just when it could've coasted off its accumulated good will and anticipation, Boardwalk Empire raised the stakes instead.

While this is a lot of plot to deliver in one episode, Revolution manages it efficiently. But still, it doesn't feel very special.

While Grace must seek to do right, The Mob Doctor is most compelling when she has to sort out what that is, and also when she has to justify what she does wrong.

Save for Sheila, the parents are likable and their circumstances familiar, but Guys with Kids relies too often on predictable jokes.

If Go On isn't breaking new ground, it does manage to find humor, even among the most dour of premises.

The lack of cynicism is at least a bit unusual in the current sitcom universe, conferring novelty and a genuine, rather than confected, sweetness.

With more time, this Coma might have provided more thrills and chills, and also explored some of the monumental issues raised by changing technologies, corporate interests, and political frameworks. Unfortunately, it doesn't do any of this.

If it strains our credulity at times, Copper also assumes our intelligence, specifically, for introducing us to an unfamiliar world and, rather than explaining every simple detail, expecting us to keep up with plot and context.

Animal Practice seems to know exactly what it wants to do, it just isn't any good at it.

Like The Closer, Major Crimes offers utterly predictable crime-solving.

It's more interesting when Elaine takes aim at the easy-target man's world she inhabits.

What makes Hit & Miss one of the strongest UK dramas to hit US TV so far this year is its reframing of such high-concept premises within unsensational contexts.

[Perception is an] inept, and sometimes offensive, drivel, turning serious mental illness into a chic tic and woefully underestimating the intelligence of its audience.

Most of the time, Wipeout is quite wonderfully in touch with its unabashed silliness.

Louie is back, as raunchy, candid, and hilarious as ever.

The network has risked its own reputation for cutting-edge, genre-busting shows by churning out a sitcom whose main joke is how derivative, unfunny, and unconvincing it is.

The Newsroom is timely, well acted, and big-hearted, but offers few surprises.

A lean moral thriller, Inside Men considers the core impulses of such justification, and draws out severe implications with considerable skill.

In its first season, Love in the Wild was thoroughly mediocre. But any improvements this year are sadly negated by the presence of McCarthy.

Despite its early dependence on Western and Gender War clichés, Longmire shows potential.

Weight of the Nation encourages viewers to feel responsible for their own lives and to make informed choices.

As White Heat covers so much historical ground--and offers a range of aging makeup effects--it suffers on occasion from a lack of humour.

In its focus on such details, the show finds humor in the contradiction between the staff's renowned arena and the petty ways they get things done.

The first episode is not a courageous start, despite good acting from the ensemble cast, generous location shooting, and a quirkily realized context.

With its precisely drawn characters, winning performances, and frank, well-observed humor, Girls is a knockout.

The show's formula looks to be this: the silly plots swirl, the brokers scheme, and the minions toil, but in each episode, Liv finds a moment to chat with one of these wise, powerful, and inevitably troubled women. In these moments, Scandal is slightly less tabloidy and soapy, and slightly more beguiling.

The new episodes present an almost a too intricate meditation on power. Game of Thrones demands that you pay attention or be left behind.

It's more subtly, and more forcefully too, a quest for understanding, specifically an understanding of how the world works.

The show's historical bread-and-butter is accompanied by a thin dramatic gruel, for the most part.

Frozen Planet recycles some material from previous films from under the same umbrella (I'm pretty sure those duck-hunting wolves were in Life) as well as covering territory very well-trodden by other films.

Despite pacy editing, superb action choreography, and location shooting across Europe, the whole turns out to be yet another re-run of that updated Western, 24, which pits an arrogant outlaw protagonist against friend and foe alike.

Herzog listens and interjects his own helpfully perverse insights.

Amid this seeming disorder, Jason Isaacs breathes a wry life into Britten, as a man who slowly feels himself accessing levels of consciousness and perception he never imagined, even as his psychiatrists label them "illness" and his work partners question their relevance.

The special effects won't keep you up nights, the transformations and the blood remain un-frightening. Instead of such visceral sensations, the show reveals what's human in monsters and vice versa.

Doomsday Preppers can't seem to help occasionally taking a jab at the undeniable eccentricity of prepping, or generally making light.

This unchallenging adaptation of Chris Bohjalian's bestseller wishes it could be American Beauty. Or maybe Desperate Housewives.

The River plainly evokes Lost.

If Smash lacks the benefit of Aaron Sorkin's hyper-literate and unmistakable dialogue, it follows Studio 60's format, observing the producers, writers, and actors who collaborate on a show, particularly what happens backstage.

For these all-too-brief moments of sheer visceral exhilaration, all of the related backroom machinations, self-destructive manipulation, and blithe dishonesty of the characters seem completely justified.

So far, its mix of spirituality and science, familial and global struggles, is galvanizing.

The performance and the script's stretches (stick around for Peterson's climactic strip search) are less convincing than campy.

On Freddie Roach [is] Peter Berg's extraordinary six-part HBO series.

The animation remains a little crude, but the show is at least trying to be a bit more dynamic in its action sequences this year. And the roughness contributes to the comedy.

Unsupervised appears content to amble along, reiterating what we've seen before.

It's an exhilarating take on a couple of familiar genres, balancing horror, humor, and heart.

Quarles and Limehouse can't replace Mags, but they add new dimensions to Raylan's ongoing dilemma, that is, how to be a lawman when the law seems anachronistic.

Based on the first two episodes, Alcatraz is a middling show.

Napoleon Dynamite the series forms its comedic syntax in the vernacular of those established shows [The Simpsons, Family Guy] instead of retaining the singular phrasing of Napoleon Dynamite the movie, and suffers as a result.

Structural laziness detracts from what's good about Lost Girl, its witty dialogue and evolving relationships among Bo and her new friends.

The hallmark of all three films has been their understanding and embrace of subjects' self-presentations./

Once it gets past the cumbersome background exposition, The Finder begins to find its specific groove.

This isn't to say Are You There, Chelsea? is completely hopeless. There are bright spots. The brightest, predictably, is Handler.

With the subtlety of a sledgehammer, the show right away telegraphs that there is more to Kaan than meets the eye, that he's not just a con. We're just not inclined to believe him.

These cases don't come together so much as they suggest a formula.

If this kind of comedy fails in its airless context, Todd Margaret's illogical universe can still be entertaining, at least for brief moments.

It will most likely be remembered for years to come, alongside My Mother, the Car and Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, as one of TV's truly bad ideas.

I Hate My Teenage Daughter offers precious few chuckles and lots of angst and argument.