That Bo’s gifts remain somewhat beyond her control or comprehension makes her a puzzle but also predictable. Bo will indeed be on a winding road, as she must be just a bit of a person who will irritate and mystify her jokester-action-hero protector, as she must seem both odd and sympathetic to the adults watching her, in her world and in yours.

The Fosters needs more than good intentions and tentative, sanitised handling of its subject to survive once a same-sex couple central to a US drama passes unnoticed.

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.

Combining the flashy trashy aesthetics of reality TV and the rodeo circuit, Rodeo Girls is at its best in the ring itself, as the camera speeds around the barrels with horse and rider.

Why is Charlie here? He doesn’t get involved in the action, only generates equations that are truly unexciting.

The show has been notoriously slow in setting up the plot everyone knows already. While the pokey details have included the protracted not-quite-romance between Erica and Father Jack (Joel Gretsch) and the precise loyalties of black-ops and terrorism expert Hobbes (Charles Mesure), the new year brings at least a veneer of urgency.

Drop Dead Diva seems regularly to be patting silly, charming women on their heads and telling them they're cute, as when Jane's new boyfriend (David Denman) tries to soothe her by saying, "When you get mad, you're pretty adorable." Such irritations undermine the show's kicky surrealism.

Other shows do complicate and elaborate the geek mystique ("CSI" and "Bones" come to mind), but all we’re likely to get from The Big Bang Theory are missed communications, fumbled opportunities, and general yuckety-yucks.

It's like the producers have set up Breaking In to be an action-comedy but nobody involved really cares about the action portion. But if the show is starting as a mild disappointment, it's far from terrible.

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.

Conviction is an awkward show.

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

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.

The connections are sudden, relationships shallow, and dialogue glib.

Yet another medical-mystery-forensics drama set in a large American city.

The trouble is, they don't surprise you. Their routes to redemption are laid out early and often.

In another series on another network, Kate might have stood out. Stuck on USA, though, she's an extraordinary woman on an ordinary show.

The series proceeds to follow Jenny’s remarkably bland course of revelation.

The promos for New Girl suggest that it's something new or at least mildly unusual. But its first episode looks like more of the same.

While you want to love the mere existence of Octavia Spencer on TV every week, the show works awfully hard to make this hard.

The standard pieces are all here, just fit into the hour in a different order.

The individual performers, enthusiastic as they seem to be, are hardly helped by this approach. Shannon and John Michael Higgins (who plays Kath’s new boyfriend, Phil Knight) are both used to playing lovable buffoons. But their time is largely wasted here.

The story is silly, but not trashy enough to make it your latest guilty pleasure.

Hart of Dixie doesn't look to be much more than what you'd unfortunately expect.

Unforgettable is a show cobbled together from the once good bits of once good shows.

The show is, in various ways, just such a trick, not quite convincing viewers that its shtick is authentic, but granting that those viewers get the joke (and will forgive, and even enjoy, the cheesy results).

It's as though the show imagines that if can just cut from one event to another fast enough, no one will notice how shallow it all is.

While the interviewees here can look back and put pieces together, fragmentation and lack of focus may be Gettysburg's most authentic effect.