It's too dour and it takes itself too seriously, but it has potential.

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.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine has a genial, pleasing loopiness and very solid work from an intelligently assembled cast.

The way to keep both casual and hardcore sci-fi fans in the fold is to tell stories that revolve around memorable characters, to take on compelling questions and to give the tales intellectual and emotional plausibility. Torchwood: Miracle Day doesn't quite have all those elements nailed down all the time, but it gets reasonable chunks of those things right--enough to keep me tuning in and hoping that the story gains coherence (and not just speed) over the course of the season.

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.

Penny Dreadful's gory moments are deployed strategically, and the adjective that best describes this show is not "bloody" but "soulful."

There are some promising ideas and story lines here, but the pilot far outshone subsequent episodes in terms of quality and efficiency.

Blue Bloods sounds good on paper. Yet despite its good cast and competent execution, this drama about a family of New York cops feels a bit perfunctory. There's nothing necessarily wrong with the drama, which is ably headed by Tom Selleck, but there's every chance that Blue Bloods will turn out to be just another cop show.

Going by the first two hours, this new incarnation of the show exactly as 24-ish as you'd want it to be.

It's light and diverting yet respectful of its characters and their histories, thus it can serve as a pleasant, earnest counterbalance to some of TV's darker dramas.

The good news is, Sarah, Cosima and the other clones retain most of the real estate in this gorgeously grimy biothriller, and watching the established characters relate to each other is still a lot of fun.

This show knows what it wants to do and it churns through its story with efficiency and the gloss that comes from executing the ABC house style with energy and a bit of flair.

If you watch Hannibal, it's likely to stay with you for days. Despite the darkness at the heart of it, that's a good thing this time around.

In the two episodes NBC sent for review, Port and Guarascio are respectful to what came before--possibly too respectful, but the desire to not rock the boat is understandable.

There's a tentativeness to Halt's first hour--it doesn't end especially strongly--but overall, the drama has a mostly credible pilot and lead actors who will probably be able take the show in compelling directions.

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

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.

I came away from HBO's five-part series with a great deal of respect for Winslet's impassioned performance, but so many other aspects of Mildred Pierce worked against Winslet's naturalistic style that parts of the miniseries ended up being, frankly, a slog.

Empire is being marketed as a bold, original show from high-profile artists, but it feels strangely tentative in its first episode.

Everything about Covert Affairs feels bland and generic: Annie herself (Perabo is efficient but charisma-free), her missions (this week's assignment is completely predictable), her relationship with her sister (the wonderful Anne Dudek, wasted in a marginal role), and especially her relationship with her boyfriend, another CIA operative.

It's all a little pell-mell, but it just about holds together and Viola Davis is ferocious in the lead role.

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

Though Extant is competently made, it shares a problem with another new TV show with a big name attached. Like "Extant," "The Strain," which arrives Sunday and boasts Guillermo Del Toro as one of its executive producers, feels kind of bland and bloodless.

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.

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

Full of fast-paced banter and pop culture lines, Riverdale starts this road trip as a fine ride.

When it comes to espionage stories or action-adventure in general, originality isn't as crucial as a good execution of the basics, and in that regard, the first hour of Nikita delivers.

Though Babylon is pleasant and reasonably well executed, there's not too much to grab on to at the center of the drama; it makes moves toward engagement of knotty issues, only to ultimately skate along their surface. But Nesbitt is typically excellent and the show's depiction of London, its cops and its cynical politics can be diverting.