While its glimpses into the democratic world of piracy are interesting, Black Sails could cull a few plot barnacles and give viewers more action.

While well acted and artfully shot, it suffers from message movie traps.

[Broad City] feels like a series of sketches that often hit but sometimes miss.

Despite the familiarities, the cheerfulness of this group helps the show overcome its predictability and other faults.

Marco Polo flits between storytelling styles without completely tying them together as successfully as "Game of Thrones" does.... By the fifth and sixth episodes the action picks up, the intrigue deepens and the stakes some higher.

The former "Dawson's Creek" hunk provides much of the charm and limited punch lines until Apartment 23 starts to find its way in later episodes.

[Todd Ray's] passion for the peculiar is praiseworthy, and erases any misgivings that the venture is exploitation at its most blatant. Still it's not that easy to watch a guy called Morgue stick a hook in his nose until it comes out his mouth.

When it really sails, it cuts through the waves swiftly. But it loses wind so many times the thrills come only sporadically.

The Inbetweeners delivers moments of humor equal to all those other shows--mostly from the physical comedy--but overall it's too wimpy to make its own mark.

Some of the dialogue is groan-worthy, some plot turns totally predictable and some of the soapy silliness is just, well, silly. But J.R.'s Dallas is still a hoot.

NBC's The New Normal has its share of stereotypes and crass jokes that straddle the line of bad taste. But it's also sweet and, dare I say, funny.

There isn't anything too deeply intellectual here because the action moves the plot. And "Strike Back" has action to spare.

Salem as a whole reflects the difference in the work of West and Montgomery. Yet its wildly uneven premiere has enough going for it to make me watch at least another episode.

It isn't consistently funny--and it definitely isn't as daring or groundbreaking as advertised.

It's often dull and heavy-handed. Rhys Meyers is burdened with purposefully heightened dialogue that sounds silly at times. His Dracula is meant to be irresistible, but he's just plain creepy.

The ambitious series finds a nice balance of slapstick and suspense. You might feel cheated if you're expecting the usual setup and joke, setup and joke format of many American sitcoms, but there are plenty of surprises and laughs.

The show is edited almost like a sitcom to draw out maximum humor, with cutaway interviews of cast members at just the right moments to reinforce their folksy philosophies. One could complain about the gender stereotypes at play, but the roles are so exaggerated here it seems the show and the Robertsons are mocking those biases.

The short, 41-minute opener (I'd DVR it and fast-forward through the commercials) is slickly filmed, generally well acted and ends with an intriguing revelation. But so little feels new and fresh.

It's all very new-agey and a bit pretentious.

A tantalizingly juicy soap opera.

If only writers John Brownlow and Don Macpherson focused more on Fleming's wartime spy-jinks than on his extended mating dance with the already married and cheating Ann.

I can't help but believe that if this new series focused on the dark, foreboding tone in its asylum scenes, it could become a powerful, trippy 9 p.m. drama.

Sparks fly, parts break off, hydraulic fluid sprays. At least the episode ends with 10 minutes of awesome.

The hauntings are staged for maximum creepiness; the show (and James) look great.

Horowitz and Kitsis are clever and playful in how they insert the fairytale characters into the present day, which kept my interest even when, as I said earlier, I was chuckling.

The Neighbors revives an old storyline used in everything from the the "SNL" Coneheads sketch to "Third Rock from the Sun." It just doesn't do it as well.

These gals are at times so self-absorbed it's difficult to feel much for them when things don't go their way.

It's fun to look at, but there's not a lot of substance underneath.