CBS's new comedy The McCarthys is well written and terrifically cast. Star Tyler Ritter is effortless in his delivery and grounds the comedy that can take family bonding to extremes.

There's a fun dynamic between John and Chas that is yet to be explored, while we haven't even met the third member of our trio yet.

The pilot for NBC's Marry Me isn't love at first sight, but there's enough potential there to expect that with time viewers may adore it.

There's a lot more to Jane the Virgin than its soapy surface and you will cry just as much as you laugh--and love every minute of it.

Everything about this comedy felt canned, artificial and forced. The dialogue was awkward enough that the actors didn't look comfortable delivering their lines, the audience wasn't always sure when and how to react, and I wasn't sure how much longer I could take it.

After an exceedingly violent first episode, it eases up a notch, and the show is better for it.

In all, The Flash pilot is an entertaining hour. It doesn't ask for too much of its audience except to sit back and let the new adventure unfold.

The “Rashomon”-style storytelling elevates the series from being just another conventional story about a middle-aged affair. But, that can't completely make up for overwrought moments in the opening episode.... But the biggest problem for The Affair is that neither Noah nor Alison is particularly appealing.

We're getting the character we knew she was capable of being, with the added layer of new motherhood.... Admittedly, it's too early to declare definitively that Homeland is back, but I will say it's back to being a show I'm looking forward to watching, rather than one that made me angry as it lost its credibility mostly and lost its way completely.

The live studio audience is just in your face laughing at the most unfunny, hit the ground with a thud, jokes being thrown left and right by a cast that should know how to deliver their lines better.... It doesn't really get funny until the third episode

Walsh is a fantastic actress with a wide range of talents, including comedy, but none of them were on display here. While there is potential in the concept of a respected judge on the bench who is a hard-partying reprobate in her personal life, NBC failed to find it in this dud.

The problem is that Gracepoint lacks the expression and personality of either "The Killing" or "Broadchurch."

Milioti and Feldman infuse a lot of freshness into what could've been a stale and staid outing. They are deftly convincing as a couple of young and attractive professionals who look for love, find it and have to figure out what to do next. All viewers have to do next, is start watching.

Sure, one could argue that other primetime series such as Criminal Minds and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit dabble in what is best described as torture porn. But there is something especially nihilistic about Stalker ... and the way it handles violence against women.

The pilot, which debuts Tuesday and introduces Dana (Analeigh Tipton) a serial monogamist and Peter (Jake McDorman, “Greek”) as a serial dater, is full of antiquated cliches better suited for a romantic comedy from 30 years ago.... If viewers stick around for the second episode, which airs next week, they will grow to like the show and the oddball way this unlikely pair start down the road to romance.

By the end of its premiere, Selfie became a watchable show with actual potential. I'm just not sure most people will be able to hang in there that long to see it unfold.

Tambor anchors the show with his sad eyes, but Landecker, Duplass and Hoffmann also turn in strong performances as the addled children.... Episodes might break your heart, but you'll keep coming back for more.

[Davis'] performance is riveting; you can't take your eyes off this powerful creature when she's on the screen. Alas, the students aren't nearly as compelling.... When the action shifts to them, the drama suffers.

Alas, some of the dialogue is extremely problematic, and the jokes tired.... but the action keeps moving, and there are enough glimmers of freshness to keep the show entertaining and warrant another viewing.

Most of the jokes work, some of them don't but creator and executive producer Kenya Barris never stops addressing race in unflinching ways.

There's a looser feel after so much anger and grief; jazzy instrumental music underscores the twisting and turning action. It's top notch TV by directors at the height of their game.

[There's] a lot of dying and when that's added to the death or deaths of the week--this is a one-note procedural after all--the morbidity starts to mount on a series that's already weighed down by clumsy mythology and storytelling.

Gotham is dark and unpleasant, but it's also exciting and unpredictable.

Madam Secretary has the pedigree and potential to be a great show. It just has to be more original.

The writing is fairly predictable on the pilot, which plays a lot of emotional notes we're all very familiar with on TV.... Problems aside, there's a “Wonder Years” quality to Red Band Society that transports viewers back to those simple firsts in life, the coming of age rites of passage that we all instantly understand and can connect to.

You don't need to pay attention to the authentic background characters, or the glorious music, or the exquisite clothes, or even the textured dialogue to appreciation the majesty of Boardwalk. In fact, you can strip away the majesty--which the show loves to do--and still have a killer drama.

Despite first impressions that can feel one-note, all the characters turn out to be complicated and intriguing.

The cast is uniformly good, especially Corey Stoll as Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, the head of a Center for Disease Control team called in to investigate that dead plane.... The greatest strength of The Strain is its ability to revamp vampires while paying homage to the myths about them that have accrued over decades.

With lead characters this complex, showrunner Michelle Ashford has plenty of material to plumb for episodes to come. Judging by the second season's start, Masters of Sex is just getting down to business.

Despite the kitchen-sink feel to it all, Extant has much going for it. Berry impressively handles the task of playing a woman who's coming to grips with both a interstellar conception and a laboratory-built “son.” And so far the series has done a good job of balancing the gee-whiz gadget fetishism of science fiction with the need for characters that the viewer will care about.

Viewers’ patience for the show and its dreamlike pace will likely depend on their appetites for soul-searching about the afterlife.

It's just a good story, cleverly told. It's not going to resolve the troubles in the Middle East, but then again, neither has anything else.

Few shows are so grounded. And, if you have a little patience, few shows are so worth watching.

Orange Is the New Black is as scatological as ever in the second season and leans awfully heavily on lesbian sex to the point of repetition. But where it shines most is when it shows the sense of dislocation inmates can have from being shuffled around with little explanation. Prisoners come and go, and they all seem to have a story.

While [John Malkovich] does indeed dig into the pirate role with relish, it's not enough to save the show.

This is, like Alan Moore's “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” a clever exploitation of characters in the public domain. But creator John Logan's story also thrives on its own. Penny Dreadful is a beguiling examination of that space between life and death.

Louie is television's best half-hour drama. It's also one of the best comedies, when it still wants to be, which isn't all that often.

24: Live Another Day does action scenes really well, but the dialogue suffers: It can be overly melodramatic and expository.

The fact that so much of the show relies on Oliver means he bears the burden of getting the tone exactly right. And right now, he's a little more angry than funny.

Its kindly spirit and those performances [from Graynor, Hansen and Grier] help prevent Bad Teacher from falling into the increasingly raunchy trap of its network predecessor, “Two and a Half Men.”

At times, however, Hawley goes a little too heavy on the quirk, and Thornton, who last regularly appeared on TV in the John Ritter political comedy “Hearts Afire” in the early 1990s, overly indulges in that smirk. Bits between mob enforcers Mr. Numbers (Adam Goldberg) and Mr. Wrench (Russell Harvard) also wear out their welcome. The overall quality of TV's Fargo is high.

Mad Men is getting better as it goes on.

The show works because all of its actors seem so human, so likeable, despite the words coming from their mouths.

Silicon Valley often has the watch-it-all-come-together plotlines that make those shows [“Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiam”] such delightful comic puzzles.

It helps that the show is well-acted, and that everything from the fonts to the costumes to the camerawork are gorgeous. You may need a while to puzzle out what's happening on screen, but at least you can enjoy some lovely scenery.

The acting is delightful, the visuals are sumptuous, the stories couldn't be more surprising.

The show does a good job of setting up a lot of conflict in a very short time, but I'd be more invested if I got to know the characters more — and if they had more dimension..... It felt too contrived.

The exceptionally well-cast The Red Road starts well, but slips in the second episode.

My complaints about the new season revolve around that 1 percent [that is unrealistic]. The show is better as a human drama than a political procedural, thank God.

Looking is a good show. It will reward viewers who can hang on beyond the first episode and can adapt to its much slower pace and more naturalistic shooting style..... But, Looking will make you work to get there.

Despite the occasional creakiness and lapses into melodrama Downton Abbey remains a show to watch, notable for its dreamy production values and the real depth of feeling it portrays between the classes.

Nic Pizzolatto’s script and Cary Fukunaga’s direction slowly, methodically earn every big moment. And when those moments arrive in the third episode, they’re legitimately terrifying.

The attempt to ground the show in reality feels unnecessary and not fun, because nothing here is all that unbelievable.

This is silliness for its own wonderfully ridiculous sake.