Given how wonderful its first season was, the fact that Broadchurch has turned into such a muddle is the bigger disappointment. Despite the usual array of finely calibrated performances, the second season simply doesn't work, in large part because it consciously and deliberately undoes much of what was powerful about the shattering conclusion to the first season.

To its credit, American Crime puts race on the table as a topic that the characters confront and talk about with refreshing frankness, but the show as a whole is so predictable and lacking in depth that there's little else to recommend it.

There's no getting around it: There are just big problems in the execution of this engaging premise, and I doubt I'll be able to get beyond what I've already seen, given how regularly the show turned me off in the early going.

Once Duhamel and Winters settle into a rhythm and begin showing more nuanced aspects of their characters, I began to enjoy "Battle Creek" for the light, reasonably well-constructed crime drama that it is, and as the season develops, Shore is able to do a few interesting things with the question of whether people can truly change.

This is a show that knows exactly what viewers expect of it, and over the course of its three seasons, the saga of reticent raider Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel) has shown increasing assuredness and has unpretentiously and reliably supplied exciting and bloody adventures.

The unsettled, rule-breaking personality of the central character, his affair with an underdeveloped female character, a murderer who's too clever by half--these things aren't hard to find on TV. And though Bosch is credible, the episodes I saw weren't at such a fantastic level of execution that I have to see more of it and feel the need to shout from the rooftops about it.

Zachary Quinto, Peter Sarsgaard, Uma Thurman, Thandie Newton and Melissa George all try their best, but this is not a legal drama or a cop show, where a near-miss can more or less work. You either nail this kind of challenging material or you don't, and The Slap ultimately fails to live up to the potential implied in its attention-getting title.

Fresh Off the Boat is good--at times, very good. Without question, it's one of the best new shows of the broadcast network season: funny, well-acted and promising on a number of levels.

Fortitude reminds me of "Borgen" because neither show is loud; nothing about this kind of drama is bombastic or outsized. Fortitude takes its time as it builds up its icy, workaday world and depicts the day to day lives of its residents.

The first four episodes of Season 3 are every bit as taut and finely crafted as the stellar prior season of the show.

I'll keep watching, of course. But there are times, truth be told, when Saul seems a little too much like its lead character: Slick, smart, desperate, driven to please and a little bit afflicted by flop sweat.

The first few episodes of the final season of Justified are about as pleasurable as TV gets.

It's hard to find much in Backstrom that feels fresh or original.

12 Monkeys hums along at a reasonable pace; its pilot is pleasingly energetic and efficient.... The problem is, 12 Monkeys tends to prioritize a series of MacGuffins over attempts to deepen its characters and their relationships.

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.

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 main problem is, Man Seeking Woman tries for the kind of weird, imaginative wit you find on "Archer" or "Louie" but the new show doesn't have the craft, ideas or skills to back it up.

It's worth noting that Looking is one of the sweetest and most romantic shows on television, and one the best at depicting the complexity and curiosity that drives many sexual encounters.

It remains invigoratingly itself and it continues to land in Hannah in a series of situations in which layers of thematic complexity stack up like delayed planes circling a busy airport.

Togetherness can be hard to watch at times, given that it looks unflinchingly at the difficulties of marriage and friendship as middle age approaches, but the show is absolutely worth sticking with, if only for the virtuoso performance from Zissis, whose failed-actor character is one of the finest new creations to arrive on television in some time.

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

The drama is every bit as brisk and engaging as its lead character, and I can only list one real objection to the show: its brevity.

State of Affairs is not quite a pulpy thrill ride, not quite an addictive melodrama and not quite a serious, searching drama.

Its somewhat opaque characters never quite moved me on that level [of "Broadchurch," "Happy Valley" or "Top of the Lake"]. Though it's well made and respectful of its subject matter, something about this show keeps it not at the surface but more or less reliably near it.

McDormand is clearly and rightfully the star of the show, but Bill Murray and Richard Jenkins provide additional reasons to tune in; both bring a warmth and dry wit to a drama whose domestic scenes occasionally veer from awkward to (intentionally) taxing.

It's rare to come across a comedy that displays such admirable focus and delivers such smartly packaged slices of diverting escapism. More, please.

A pleasingly executed diversion featuring capable and textured performances from actors in key roles.

The Affair is subtle, smart and an intelligent examination of the way in which we are all the unreliable narrators of our own lives.