Imagine Elon Musk, in a fit of boredom, buys the Chicago police department and you've got the idea of this odd little show.

But the veteran Williamson—who's masterminded everything from the maniacal Scream franchise, to the terrifying murder-cult drama The Following, to more teenage vampire claptrap than can be listed on cyberspace—can really rattle your bones even when he's not necessarily engaging your intellect.

In short, Chelsea Clinton's evil twin from a parallel and even more dysfunctional universe! Any way we can beam back to the days of Amy Carter?

The idea of different chronological variants of the same character wandering the same timeline would be a forbidden paradox in most time-travel tales. But The Time Traveler's Wife embraces it. Because highly emotional moments in his life act as a kind of magnet for Henry's temporal tumbles, there are certain moments—the awful ones, mostly, like the death of his mother—where there are as many as 20 versions of him looking on, all as dumbstruck with horror as they were the first time they witnessed it.

Give them credit for trying a different take on cop shows, but S.W.A.T. simply falls flat in every conceivable way.

If Still Star-Crossed was taken hostage by a hacker the way the way the new Pirates of the Caribbean film reportedly had been, ABC and Disney would probably break out into delighted giggles and spend the promo budget on a karaoke party for the staff.

The Purge remains essentially a snuff film. Call me crazy, but it just may turn out that 10 hours of gory slaughter unconstrained by even the vaguest intellectual or moral framework is going to be irredeemable crap no matter how many pretty sociopolitical ribbons you put on it. Call it, I dunno, grade-Z nihilism.

The shark-jumping occurred in Happy Days' fifth season. But a critic who waits five years to declare a shark jumped these days probably won't have a show left to declare dead; three and a half seasons is now considered a healthy lifespan for a TV series. So let's give mad props to NBC's La Brea, which vaults the Selachimorpha in precisely nine minutes when it debuts next week.

The script, when it's going for laughs, is absolutely riotous. The scenes taking place in the frat-boy bullpen at Lisa's new hedge fund office—favorite on-going prank: during conversations with SEC compliance officers, they mute their end of the call, then drop trou and rub their junk on the phone—are pee-your-pants hilarious.

Warburton's expressionlessly ironic delivery turns repetitious; the situations unfunny and even creepy (do daughters really announce their alternative sexual proclivities by making out with a girlfriend in front of dad?) By the end of the second episode, you may even find yourself longing for a good Bill Cosby rape joke.

It's not the worst of the genre, but that's light-years away from calling it good.

In short, they're plotting to turn the world into an episode of Starsky and Hutch.

If the substance of Disjointed seems straight out of 1972, so does its structure.

It is difficult to understate the breathtaking and apparently straight-faced derangement of Agent X.

In other words, all the same stuff you've seen on every TV medical drama back to the days of Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare, from which Pure Genius is indistinguishable except for the color photography.

Created by Charlie Day, one of the producers and stars of the hilariously vulgar and half-witted sitcom It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia , Cool Kids shares its proud tastelessness.

Transforms the nerd-comedy masterpiece The Big Bang Theory into—well, garbage.

It's rarely funny (at least intentionally), never affecting, and has the narrative cohesion of a Dick and Jane reader minus the cute drawings of Puff the Cat. It is, however, weirdly interesting.

It's a wretched mess and arguably an offense against human intelligence.

The punchlines fly thick, fast and pointed in Kevin Can Wait, and enough of them land to make it a diverting, if unenlightening, experience.

Valor in no way resembles the generic bang-bang of CBS' SEAL Team or NBC's The Brave. It's an intriguing conspiracy thriller with some painful observations on modern warfare that may take much of the The CW's youthful audience by surprise.

Imagine, as I suppose you have many times, Footloose set in a Stalinist work camp. Or a Hunger Games in which the weapons are not bows and arrows but manuals of Canadian Choreography for the Big-Butted. Or that you suddenly and unaccountably found yourself with a fatally compelling urge to thrust red-hot pokers into your eyes and ears while praying for a quick descent into the fiery embrace of Hell. This last one, I must dutifully report, is no longer just an amusing fantasy but a genuine likelihood should you decide to watch an episode of Hulu's dizzying post-apocalyptic rap drama (I am pretty sure I'm the first person ever to type that phrase) Utopia Falls.

MacGyver (played by Lucas Till, X-Men: Apocalypse) is soooo much smarter than us, his producers have helpfully slapped big bold chyron labels on all the household goods with which he builds Klingon battlecruisers and time-traveling Waring blenders. So yes, that black ashy substance is indeed "SOOT." And that tangle of wires? You guessed it: "ELECTRONICS." Then there are the moments—a lot of them—when MacGyver is boinking one of his chick assistants while whipping up a laser death ray with his free hand. You'll know when the MacGyver audience has reach its target IQ when you see a chyron reading "ORIFICE."

Easily the most promising series of the fall broadcast season: funny, poignant, and drenched in the chemistry between three charismatic actresses playing women who suddenly learn they're sisters.

In some ways it's not about poverty, but rather a tale about reassembling a shattered family.

When it isn't irritatingly imitative, [it's] hopelessly stupid.

A crime-fighting Miami pathologist who likes to smirkily show up the cops with whom he works as unscientific dumbasses--sort of like Neil deGrasse Tyson with a badge, and in just as much need of having his eyeballs slapped out.

Homicidally irritating.