Breakout Kings is better than "The Glades," another A&E scripted drama set in the world of law enforcement, but that's not saying a whole lot. Still, if future episodes are as good as the second episode (and better than the clunky pilot), it'll give fans of "White Collar" or "Leverage" something to watch until those shows come back.

The pilot is high-strung but basically acceptable, and I'll keep watching in the well-founded hopes that it will find consistently entertaining groove and use its fine cast (which includes Tim Meadows and Dan Bucatinsky as Annie's dads) as well as "Happy Endings" used its fab ensemble.

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

More work needs to be done on all the characters; so far they're just types, and the first episode, perhaps because of its manic tone, didn't make me laugh much. But I can see Breaking In growing into a pleasant, mildly goofy comedy that offers the light-adventure qualities of a USA or TNT show and the silly diversions of a half-decent 'Chuck' episode.

Alexander and Stapleton, both appealing enough in their own right, to execute some basic action-adventure moves, though their characters have no discernible chemistry as yet. The Blindspot pilot is more or less efficient enough, even though few aspects of the premise make any real sense.

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.

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.

While Hall (who plays Tietjens' wife, Sylvia) and Cumberbatch do a fine job of portraying two mismatched people who are nevertheless stuck with each other for a bunch of social, cultural and personal reasons--some of which even they don't understand--Parade's End is often at war with itself.

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.

Hostages unfolds with the crisp efficiency of a humorless event planner checking tasks off a list.

V needs to either camp it up completely or go in the other direction and model itself after propulsive dramas such as '24.' The show's attempts meld those two very different tones together just makes for an awkward mismatch.

It hasn't yet proven that it can find consistently satisfying things to do with the legal drama (Harvey's "closing" scenes are fun though I can see them becoming a bit of a crutch).

Crisis is efficient without really ever becoming enticing.

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

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

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.

When Williams can rein in his hyper qualities, he can be an effective presence. And at least he knows his way around a joke, unlike Gellar, who, post-"Buffy," still hasn't risen above the level of the writing she's given (and the writing for her here is flat and one-dimensional).

[Whitaker's] charisma gives Suspect a strong center and his line delivery is consistently interesting. If the original 'Minds' is one of your favorite shows, there's no reason not to give this drama a shot.

"He's a lawyer--but with a twist!" is not a formula that the big networks will ever stop trying to perfect. But the execution of that idea isn't quite up to par in the first episode of Rake.

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.

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.

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

It seems like it could be a fun, if cheesy, soap opera about skulduggery and backstabbing in high society. But Revenge makes the fatal mistakes of wanting to be taken seriously and yet not making its characters worthy of any kind of serious consideration.

If Person of Interest can calibrate the relationship between the leads in a way that makes their interactions more compelling, and if the show finds ways to answer Nolan's questions in creative and unexpected ways, it could be CBS' next addictive drama. If it ends up being a post-9/11 version of 'The Equalizer,' then this person will quickly lose interest.

Despite all the attention to detail, or maybe because of it, Boardwalk Empire is a slog. For long periods of time, it's boring, glum, bloodless slog.

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

Smoothing off some of the rogue cop’s edges, ironically, makes Paxton’s acting job more difficult. He has keep reminding us that he’s contemptuous of many law enforcement standards while at the same time throwing out hints he still harbors some deep and real humanity.Roarke sometimes lurches a little from this balancing act, at least in the early going, and that can throw off other characters as well.

It’s not a dealbreaker of an idea to take a famous historical figure and put him or her into a world that makes his or her life more relatable to young folks who come along several centuries later. It works better, though, if the modern trappings flavor the historic character, rather than the other way around.