Both Johnson and Valleta recognize the script for what it needs--a quirked eyebrow here, a glower held a bit longer than usual there--and tip the story in their favor as the down-and-dirty version of Frank and Claire Underwood. Crawford and Rittenhouse are so busy trawling for sympathy that they barely register.

For a show about highly trained, incredibly intelligent agents, Quantico’s pilot often succumbs to lame-brained plotting and a less-than-convincing portrayal of its specialized milieu.

Though it has some slick car chases, The Player lacks the wit, ingenuity and originality to inspire curiosity about what’s going to happen next.

By the sixth or seventh time someone ominously intones, “It’s coming,” you’ll be just about exhausted. Some things shouldn’t necessarily be reborn.

At its worst, Rosewood plays like the kind of ridiculous, over-the-top drama with which a sitcom character becomes obsessed. At its best, it offers its audience the chance to feel smarter than its characters.

With the wattage of star-power turned so far up in the first episode alone (read: a lot of cameos we can’t tell you about) the struggle for control of Empire can fuel the plot further, but it’s Cookie’s steady stream of hilarious one-liners and the show’s character transformations--if they happen at all--that could add nuance and depth to the show.

For the most part the show works, and the parts that don’t may just be growing pains from anyone familiar with the old stuff. But one major concern keeps bubbling up: The original series had a lovingly dusty vaudevillian style, an affectionate throwback to a show business world from decades earlier, while this just feels like stuff from five years ago.

The plotting is pretty perfunctory, but McDorman wears the show’s hyperbolic intensity lightly, as if playfully mocking the hard-boiled self-seriousness around him. But he also brings pathos to Brian’s gnawing sense of failure.

The entire two-hour pilot is parody, on top of parody, on top of parody. The sentences coming out of Chanel’s mouth are beyond anything a clichéd mean girl would utter in other high school or sorority movies, while every homage to films like Scream or Urban Legends is taken to the extreme. What makes it work is Murphy’s renowned world-building.

The show moves quickly to establish not only Jane’s superior physicality, but also her hard-wired do-gooder tendencies and willingness to join the fray. At the same time, Blindspot creators seed their story with memory flashbacks intended to suspend the tension surrounding the character.

What’s initially arresting about the concept remains unfulfilled after the pilot, and while it’s understandable that the producers needed to first establish its central characters, Dash and Vega aren’t particularly well-drawn thus far, creating a concern that this show will be more interesting theoretically than it is dramatically.

Separately, the Short family members are worthy of a glimpse and can garner a chuckle. Together, they’re abrasive and unlikable.

Most of what has made Harris a beloved fixture of live telecasts has been eradicated in this misguided attempt at revising the variety show format.

This resulting premiere is an offering that feels haphazardly stitched together--the audience often left pondering the relevance of each scene. By Episode 3 that pace and journey shift to relevant and thoughtful, but it sure is an exhaustive journey to finally get there.

The jokes were mostly solid, but anodyne. Colbert projected enthusiasm, but it felt like he was in a hurry to get through the segment and to the desk.... The guest interviews were not great... For the premiere of the new Late Show to be a success, Colbert, like those guys, needed to convince us that he was having fun. And like the other Stephen Colbert did for so long, he needed to make us have fun watching him. Mission accomplished.

Watching the first hour of Hand of God, the performances are solid but the shocking moments fail to connect dramatically.

Finding out how Escobar rose in power and status to become a murderous megalomaniacal drug lord is as fascinating as it is frightening. This is due in large part to the masterful performance Brazilian actor Wagner Moura delivers as Escobar. Menacing but never melodramatic, Moura is exceptionally convincing and subtle.... Murphy is a man who wants to “do good” and nearly ruins the series because it. Compounding the issue, Murphy’s voice-over commentary is excessive, occasionally states the obvious and at its worse, takes you out of the moment.

Even if subtlety isn’t going to be part of the equation, Burns makes up for it with his wiseguy humor, rapid-fire dialogue and a high volume of plot.

Stewart and Scarborough make Blunt Talk worth watching, as they’re an offbeat co-dependent pair who clearly have great affection and respect for each other, and watching Stewart embrace Walter’s often loony behavior is a treat.

The bar for quality is set pretty low. But this entry, unlike the previous “Save by the Bell” exposé, does nothing to justify its own existence.

Fear the Walking Dead pulls off a great feat in prequel land: using that nagging sense of inevitability to its advantage. It shouldn’t work, but it totally does.

While the pilot script excels in efficient plot building, it lags in dialogue and character development.

For the most part, Show Me a Hero revels in small, telling moments that say as much about human nature as how the American people perceive politics and politicians.

Documentary Now! is so wonderfully silly it may take viewers a moment to recognize just how smart it is, too.

On one hand, the microscopic nature of Kevin from Work is fresh and daring in a millennial-friendly sort of way as are Reid and Spara’s attractive visages and tangible chemistry. On the other hand, the webby approach and the caricature heavy supporting cast erode the show’s legitimacy.

For every charming and genuinely funny moment--and there is a fair amount--there is a lazy sitcom trope that stunts Mr. Robinson and depletes it of its promise.

The 8-episode series (only six episodes were made available to critics) mostly succeeds by sheer force of will. The viewers are so bombarded by jokes that something is bound to tickle you eventually-–though truth be told it may take awhile.

Following the firmly established formula, director Anthony C. Ferrante delivers predictably amped-up action and less camp on this third swipe at the chum bucket. But that doesn’t stop it from being a fun, if less hilarious, ride.