Given that this show was created by "Scream" writer Kevin Williamson, there's the usual showy deconstruction of scary-story cliches, but that deconstruction just draws attention to how hollow this project is. ... Ultimately, my dislike for The Following has less to do with its gore factor than with its essential laziness, silliness and pretentiousness.

The show's must-see second season is one of the best stories I've experienced in a long time.

All in all, Skip, an unkempt ball of puppyish energy to whom the writers feed a wealth of good material, is by far the best thing about this show. Jenna Elfman is all right as first lady and the rest of the cast hovers around the edges not making much of an impression.

It does what it sets out to do reasonably well without breaking my brain in the process.

Season 2 has some nuanced writing and some cleverly observed moments. But there are also a number of grating elements on display as the season gets underway.

This Cougar Town vintage may be a bit brasher and brighter, but never fear: It's still quite potent and drinkable.

The lovely thing about Justified is that it delivers all the shaggy charm of a diverting character piece even as a supple, strongly structured story gives the whole affair an unmistakable energy and direction.

It tends to work a lot better as the season progresses--like a 19th Century train, this polished piece of machinery starts slow and needs to work up a head of steam in order to be enjoyed in all its Victorian glory.

The Hour has some pacing issues--there are sludgy patches that could use a bit more zip and energy--but overall, the show creates a delectable, specific world that's very easy to glide into and inhabit.

Liz and Dick is badly paced, cheap-looking and encrusted with a tinkly, preposterous soundtrack that is designed to make viewers go insane.

It's essentially interested in the ways in which lonely, damaged characters allow themselves to find comfort in a world that has no fixed moral moorings, and the wounded tenacity of these people is every bit as intriguing as the progress of that mystery briefcase.

This show only occasionally works, and I increasingly think it would have been a better bet as an animated show.

One of the best things about "Happy Endings," however, is how the character relationships all work--each combination of characters brings its own pleasures. Suburgatory isn't quite there yet.

Happy Endings has so many things going for it that the occasional weak story line or meh scene is not a big deal at all.

It's to the credit of Asylum's writers, directors and cast that the emotional pain of the characters often feels as real as their uncertainty and terror.

Tactical wins, taut storytelling and zombies munching tasty, tasty braaaaains: All that plus the addition of Michonne and David Morrissey as the Governor in upcoming episodes make me pretty damned happy that The Walking Dead is back.

It's a high-class entertainment that takes its locale and its characters seriously and treats the audience to some enjoyable music along the way.

Structurally, the whole thing feels fresh again, and even if I have doubts about how the writers will wring two worthy seasons out of the new dynamics (Showtime has committed to airing at least one more season), the three 2012 episodes I've seen efficiently pulled me back in.

There's nothing about the two episodes I've seen that makes me think the second season won't be as addictive as the first.

If you can accept Midwife for what it is--and at its core, it's a pleasant, even romantic period piece about divergent people who learn to take care of their own--there are quite a few pleasures to be found here.

I'm not discouraged by the show's early growing pains; the cast is still full of good actors, Last Resort displays an admirable amount of forward momentum and the hiccups along the way are just another indication of how many chances the show is taking.

For all its predictable moments, however, Made in Jersey is still more or less watchable, thanks to Montgomery, who is an effortlessly appealing actress.

The two leads lack any kind of chemistry, platonic or otherwise, and the storytelling lacks the smarts and insight of one of TV's best Sherlockian creations, "House."

I'll keep watching, given the caliber of the cast and the solidly made pilot, and I'll hope that Vegas gives these actors more to do than standing over bodies and leveling shotguns at city slickers.

It's the kind of show that could well settle into a nice groove once it gets a few episodes in, especially given that all the performances are top notch, including those from Lucy Punch and Echo Kellum as friends of the title duo.

There's a weird stew of ideas about expectations, desire and anger roiling around in Mindy, but as they're explored here, those ideas don't cohere into a show that's either funny or cogent.

This just doesn't work on any level and creates very little suspense, even in life-or-death situations.

Feisty is one thing, rude is another. But all of that is of a piece with the show's generally lazy approach to storytelling: A couple of supporting characters are cardboard villains, and a subplot about a minor's surgical procedure doesn't make a ton of sense if you know the first thing about medical privacy laws.

CBS programs generally display a level of basic competence that this "comedy" falls woefully short of.

The clash between the callow and the compelling set off an ongoing debate between the hopeful part of my brain, which wants to like a sci-fi-ish show dreamed up by executive producers J.J. Abrams and Eric Kripke, and the scarred part of my brain, which has been burned dozens of times by genre-flavoroed shows that had interesting elements or cast members but also disappointing executions and annoying younger characters.

The women here are shrewish, the vibe is both manic and tired, and overall, the decent cast (which includes the wonderful Anthony Anderson) is given nothing funny to do.

The New Normal needs to work in a more linear and emotionally direct fashion, and there's not much about this NBC pilot, which is fueled by a mixture of cattiness and slick manipulation, that reassures me on that front.

It's weird that in the show's fifth season, the stakes actually feel lower than they did a couple of years ago.

Frankly, it's avant-garde to the point of feeling overwrought and pretentious.

As it is, the decent but unspectacular Copper comes off as "Deadwood Cop," minus the Milch.

There are fitful moments that work, but the show also manages to shoot itself in the foot regularly.

The second season of this Western finds it marginally better paced and the characters moderated a bit from the broad archetypes seen in Season 1, but I still find little to compel me in the story of a robber baron and an ex-soldier teaming up to get a transcontinental railroad built.

Animal Practice might devolve into a lot of jokes about mammalian reproduction and/or defecation, or it might evolve into a goofy workplace drama with reasonably sparky leads and occasionally frisky pythons. Given the quality of the core cast and the mildly pleasing (if broad) nature of the pilot, I've got my paws crossed and I'm hoping for the latter.

The truth of the matter is, the pilot is well-paced and the first half is especially fun.

All in all, the Alphas season premiere is competent and enjoyable when it comes to action and pacing, but this show (especially given its modest budget) will rise and fall on the continuation of the character development begun in Season 1, and the jury's still out on that front.

Political Animals hews fairly closely to the USA tone and smartly employs any number of light-drama conventions, thus it can likely be enjoyed simply as an entertainment

Breaking Bad is one of the great shows of television's Golden Age, and the first two episodes of the show's fifth season will give viewers no reason to think otherwise.

The first two hours of Hit and Miss come across as a finely observed, well-acted independent film, and I wasn't really sure whether there was a lot more story left to tell as Episode 2 came to a close, but I'm willing to let Mia prove me wrong.

While it's no "Closer," the Eric McCormack vehicle Perception is perfectly adequate "Eccentric Consulting Genius" fare.

Episodes isn't a weighty series at all, but these actors elevate every scene they are in with spot-on comic timing and a graceful ability to play a range of conflicting emotions at once.

Despite the careful attention to image enhancement possibilities, the core ugliness and toxic narcissism of Anger Management are impossible to ignore.

When it comes to expectations, Louie does a pretty consistent job of exceeding them.

On paper, it all appears to be functional. In reality, I find myself uninterested in Ryan's minuscule problems and Wilfred's repeated attempts to hector or nag Ryan into taking more chances with his narrow little life.

It's got a smart pace, good performances and it's a relief not to have to commit to something long-term.

When The Newsroom isn't obvious and self-congratulatory, it's manipulative and shrieky.

All in all, the new season of Falling Skies gets the basics right.

All things considered, though, this is a show that is pretty firmly fixed on what it does best--serving up soapy, Texas-sized shenanigans and trying to mix in a little seasoning of real emotion along the way.

The relationships that are sketched out in the first hour are promising.

Not only is Hemingway and Gellhorn wretched, it is bathed in pretentiousness and pseudo-intellectual delusions of grandeur. It's not just crap, it's expensive, painfully "artistic" crap starring a lot of actors who should have known better once they took a look at the script, which is hilariously awful.

Common Law, like "Fairly Legal" before it, isn't just formulaic--it's lazy.

Veep simply isn't particularly fresh or funny, and most of its jokes are telegraphed from a long way away.

It's certainly been a long time since I was this beguiled by a set a characters, but Girls is one of those rare birds: It's a show that comes to us with its voice, characters and ideas fully formed.

I'm happy to report that not being a fan of James Van Der Beek from the "Creek" didn't prevent me from enjoying the actor in the moderately amusing ABC sitcom.

Everything about Magic City shows a lack of depth, and the pacing is almost glacial.

Even if Scandal isn't quite as instantly addictive as "Grey's Anatomy" was back in the day, this is a well-paced, generally well-acted show with some promising elements (though there is also an occasional tendency to offer contrived redemptions that don't make a ton of sense).

The show takes the time to give a few realistic dimensions to the characters' emotional lives, and each actor in the core trio has sharp comic timing.

The storytelling by executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and their writing staff is increasingly assured and judicious; the first-rate cast continues to mine the full depth of the material; and the show itself is visually commanding, especially in the hands of Alan Taylor, who directed the first two episodes of the season.

All in all, this season premiere allows fans to marinate in the world of the characters for two hours.

It would be a mistake to count this scruffy little comedy out. It's really charming.

This is a case of a show just not working on both a structural and emotional level.

An animated comedy that is propelled by a very strong voice cast and by its own daffy comedic momentum.

It doesn't seem to know who it wants to focus on or what it wants to do (the security missions, such as they are, are unexceptional afterthoughts).

A tedious array of shrieky moments, dumb stereotypes and unearned sentiment.

The good news is that the unusually ambitious Awake succeeds at several of the things it's attempting, and star Jason Isaacs grounds the drama with a charismatic yet subtle performance.

There is awkwardness and idiocy on display in Life's Too Short, which stars actor Warwick Davis as a hopefully inaccurate version of himself, but almost none of it is funny, much of it is off-putting and all of it is pointless.

If you've given Cougar Town a real shot and found that it's not for you, fair enough; but if you already love the goofy-sweet-smart flavor of this show, you'll find a lot to like about the new season.

The River isn't terrible, and it actually has some effective elements, but it's fairly indicative of ABC's post-"Lost" flailing.

Smash elegantly and energetically draws you into the orbit of a dozen dreamers and schemers at various stages in their Great White Way careers, and, like a true pro, the show makes it all look easy.

It's certainly worth keeping up with Key & Peele, given how strong and confident those outings are.

The parts that do work possess the doom-laden yet strangely optimistic romanticism of Milch's best work.

Nothing about these connections feels particularly earned and many of the twists and turns of the pilot feel contrived and obvious, especially toward the end.

Justified doesn't come close to losing control of its narrative.

Alcatraz isn't bad, but it's not exactly brimming with the kind of engaging magic and memorable people that you want from a J.J. Abrams project.

Given how much potential this premise contains, I dearly wish The Fades could decide what it wants to do.

The good aspects of this show are engaging and Misfits is a damn sight more consistent than the most spectacular fail in this genre, "Heroes."

What a light, yet satisfying treat this show turned out to be.

It's hard to get behind the dilemmas of a group characters who whine as much as this gloomy bunch.

With its mildly irascible lead and its extremely sturdy central premise, it evokes USA's better shows, right down to its blue skies and palm trees.

At least Lewis appeared to be having fun, which can't be said of anyone else in this rather grim production.

Chelsea doesn't do anything to make the TV version of Chelsea interesting, likable or winning.

[The actors] are cramped by obvious, unsubtle writing and a show that doesn't seem to have much of an idea of where to take these sardonic characters.

Now in its second season, Portlandia has matured into a comedic concoction that is consistently pleasing.

Your investment in the many stories spun out by creator Julian Fellowes may take longer to develop this year, because the costume drama's pace is off in the early going and it's far more contrived and inconsistent than it was in its first season.

Women are as capable of writing a misogynist, soul-killing TV comedy as anyone else. Exhibit A: I Hate My Teenage Daughter, a shrieky nightmare.

It's good at being tedious.

This small gem of a film manages to be a finely drawn character piece and a searching exploration of what powerful people will (and won't) do to keep their countries safe, and it provides some great actors with meaty roles along the way.

Perhaps Allen Gregory's arrogance is meant to be entertaining, but I just found it mostly insufferable, despite his occasional flashes of self-awareness.

There's still something winning and relevant about their particular blend of cluelessness and surprisingly sharp commentary.

There are times when the enterprise lacks a certain heft and when the fantasy realm seems a little generic. Also, some characters, especially Lana Parrilla's Evil Queen (who is also the mayor of Storybrooke), are one-dimensional in kind of maddening ways, though Robert Carlyle makes up for that with his charismatic turn as both Rumplestiltskin and a Storybrooke resident named Mr. Gold.

The problem is, the show that's been built around the actor (who's also a producer on the project) isn't nearly as interesting as what Grammer brings to the screen, and the sluggish pacing and melodramatic excesses of Boss could put off those drawn in by the actor's confident star turn.

The bottom line is, if you liked the what the show was dishing out in its first season--genre storytelling made with admirable restraint and economy, except for those jump-out-of-your-seat scary/gross moments--you're likely to enjoy what you see in season 2.

It doesn't work as a character drama and it's tiresome more often than it's freakily scary.

It's nice to see that in the first three episodes of the eight-episode second season, the plots, such as they are, have a little more discipline and focus than they did in season 1.