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.

Much of which transpires in the first few episodes seems familiar, if not a little predictable, and what saves the Taylors from being impossibly virtuous are the flaws the writers give them and the consistently great performances that Chandler and Britton give.

Sure, there were some good bits in there. It wasn't that Conan put on a bad or unprofessional show, just a very conventional one.

On the whole, I'd say The Walking Dead worth a look, no matter what your genre preferences, but horror aficionados are more likely to enjoy this intense, blood-spattered tale, which, like all AMC dramas, is about as aesthetically well-crafted as a TV show can be.

Even if you've never seen 'Terriers,' or indeed the first season of Men of a Certain Age, you're likely to find something to enjoy in the second season of MOACA, which expertly mines both comedy and drama from life's awkward transitional passages.

It's be one thing if the show employed thinly drawn, cliched characters in service of solid comedy, but very little of Glory Daze is actually funny.

Sherlock is an enjoyably clever mixture of character drama and adventure tale.

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.

In its first couple of Season 2 episodes, The Good Wife stirs up a delectable stew of political, legal, romantic and interpersonal complications. It manages to be both escapist and intelligent, and that is an unbeatable combination.

This West Coast Law & Order works best when it gives its able cast knotty dilemmas to play.

Again and again, the show takes what should be subtext and turned it into stilted dialogue that grows repetitive very quickly.

The attempt to shoehorn the Shat into the strained story of a father and an adult son, Henry, getting to know each other for the first time seems false. And when there are glimmers that it might work, Shatner's character, Ed, is visited by his grating other son, Vince, and his even more grating wife, Bonnie. They're awful.

The show treats this central culture clash with a great deal of tentativeness, a quality that never makes for good comedy, yet despite its scaredy-cat caution, Outsourced still manages to be vaguely insulting and condescending.

What's especially impressive in Season 3 is how cogently and clearly events in the two different universes are handled. It's not hard to tell which is which and it's not hard to follow how the two worlds are connected, and those connections have only deepened the mythology in pleasing ways.

The whole point of the show is to display super sexy spies having cool adventures and getting to know each other again as they try to put the spark back into their marriage. There's nothing necessarily objectionable about that, but forgive me if I expect more from a series that J.J. Abrams is involved in. Having said all that, Undercovers is not a chore to watch.

The Defenders which, like those other shows, is a pretty straightforward legal procedural, has a surprising amount of fun with its familiar building blocks.

Every point is hammered home with a complete lack of subtlety; during the closing argument in the pilot, bits of previous scenes were replayed at crucial moments, in case the audience forgot what transpired several minutes ago. It's always a good time when a television network assumes that you're a half-wit.

Good comedies take a lot of work, but that strain shouldn't show up on the screen. It pains me to say that, despite all the obvious effort, I can't see how Running Wilde could get significantly better.

The tacked-on attempt to give the show some heart ("See, they're just crazy, mixed-up regular folks with good intentions!") was so disappointingly cynical and contrived. It was a transparent attempt to give depth to something that had so vociferously lacked it.

Yet despite the dude-tastic charisma that Caan brings to Danno, I can't quite see a reason to watch Hawaii Five-0 again, given that each week, the stories will probably feel like something we've already seen on 'NCIS,' 'NCIS Los Angeles' or any number of the 'CSIs.' Bad guys will be caught, the team shall be triumphant. Rinse and repeat.

Lone Star doesn't have quite the same sense of place as 'FNL,' and it's far more of a traditional soap than the NBC/DirecTV drama. Still, Voight and especially Keith, who projects palpable charisma, give terrific performances as the strong, stubborn men trying to bend Bob to their wills. This is no 'Dallas' but a sincere look at one man's attempt to go straight without alienating everyone he loves.

The Event was a well-paced hour that played skillfully with time, and if the characters were a little thin, well, it's a pilot--it'll take time to give characters shading and dimension.

Frankly, this complex and entertaining show is the kind of things that the networks--cable and broadcast--just don't make anymore: It's a grand, handsome saga about a whole slice of society, from shop clerks and showgirls to fixers and Feds.

NBC's new Jimmy Smits vehicle is called Outlaw. I guess the title 'Contrived, Irritating Star Vehicle' just wasn't as catchy.

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.

For all its formulaic predictability, though, this show has an acerbic self-awareness that may defuse the cynicism you may bring to it.

The diverting and enjoyable Terriers occupies a different stylistic territory, but there's a noir strain underneath its shaggy exterior. As the best detective stories do, it features a smart, flawed lead character who is too stubborn and inquisitive for his own good.

If you're really just in the mood for a tightly plotted character drama, the show delivers on that score. And if you like to see bikers busting heads, well, SOA has some of the best bone-crunching action in the business.