By the second episode, Mr. Mayor is already resorting to bad toupee jokes and the aforementioned “PPPORN” debacle. (Really, no one at City Hall raised a red flag about that one?) Even a sure-fire winner like getting Ted Danson stoned on weed gummy bears somehow falls flat. (He ends up fighting a hockey mascot, for some reason.) The actors seem almost resigned here, too.

A disappointingly mediocre follow-up that lacks the unique spark of the original and isn’t interesting enough to justify how convoluted it is.

The ensemble has held together nicely in the two decades since. ... When it comes time to take aim at today’s political landscape, Murphy Brown misses its target. ... The revival’s strongest asset, actually, is Murphy’s relationship with her now-adult son Avery (Jake McDorman).

USA’s The Rainmaker is a tepid, muddled retelling of the classic John Grisham legal thriller that falls short, despite John Slattery’s charms.

Elisabeth Moss’ spy thriller The Veil is effectively tense and provocative, but it gets derailed by unnecessary subplots.

Mostly, any flicker of emotional complexity gets trampled by the plot as it barrels forward in five different directions at once. A whole lot happens in Zero Day, it’s true… but I can’t say I cared much about any of it.

Yes, it gets a little soapy at times, but it's still a satisfying watch because there's an emotional authenticity at its core.

Unfortunately, you won’t need to get past the second commercial break of the pilot episode to realize you’re watching the most banal type of procedural, dressed up in garish period costumes and clogged with faith-versus-science questions that get explored with all the depth and nuance of a political debate on The View.

Tim Allen and Kat Dennings make an entertainingly feisty duo as father and daughter in ABC’s new family sitcom Shifting Gears.

If The Great Indoors can maintain a balance of smart, and not tired, barbs lobbed between “the human version of dial-up” and the “stupid twentysomethings” with whom he must now work, there surely is a show here.

While you shouldn’t look for American Gothic to enter the Emmy conversation in the history of ever, that’s simply not the point of it. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a weird, sometimes eerie distraction that won’t require rewinding if a few lines of dialogue get downed out by the air conditioner, CBS’ newest offering might be a summer series that slays.

It does not improve, and just keeps hammering the same tired joke over and over again. It’s a colossal waste of everyone’s time and talent. Cringe humor without the humor is just cringing.

Perhaps some day Chelsea will inspire a fascinating intellectual discussion about the perils of noisily promising something new on the late-night scene, then delivering the TV equivalent of an ancient burlap grocery sack: a good idea in its infancy, perhaps, but now on the brink of everything imminently falling out of the bottom with a messy splat.

L.A.’s Finest is a loud, dumb mess of a cop drama, loaded up with corny punchlines and incoherent plotting.

A quality cast does its best, but can’t salvage the cringe-worthy dialogue and paper-thin characterizations.

There’s nothing incredibly groundbreaking and innovative about any of this… but there doesn’t really need to be. It’s a cute, lighthearted throwback that goes down easy in an era of tough-to-watch dramas, and like The Mindy Project, it doubles as an affectionate tribute to classic rom-coms. The cast’s quick chemistry is remarkable, too.

Murphy’s productions always tend to favor style over substance — aside from FX’s triumphant Pose, which finds the beating human heart inside its flamboyant characters — but this might be his emptiest effort yet.

An overstuffed, often ridiculous supernatural drama that somehow manages to make a town filled with magical creatures seem crushingly dull.

Peacock’s Roman epic Those About to Die is an overstuffed, underbaked slog that slumps when the action ends.

Hulu’s How I Met Your Father has a strong cast, but lame jokes and an excess of schmaltz make it fall short of the original.

The show’s supporting players--in particular, D.B. Woodside’s Amenadiel, sent down from Heaven to insist Lucifer go back from where he came, Rachael Harris as Lucifer’s shrink, and Lesley-Ann Brandt as Maze, Lucifer’s ass-kicking assistant--hint at the possibility of a more interesting show (as does a closing twist in “Favorite Son”). Until or unless the show’s writing staff digs down and explore those darker instincts, however, Lucifer feels stuck in creative purgatory.

The jokes could use some polishing, and the concept could easily grow old in a hurry, but the trio of Wayans, Stevens West and Mallard nudge this one a solid notch above your average network sitcom.

The whole series feels like Netflix fed Arnold’s old action movies into ChatGPT and filmed whatever came out, unedited.

Those of us who tune in to the other two shows in the franchise have already been here, seen this — and we’ve seen it done with greater artfulness, efficacy and urgency. Adding this third series to the rotation, even temporarily, feels more than a little bit like beating an undead horse.

The end result feels like a hideous pastiche of focus-group testing, procedural clichés and CliffsNotes literary references that got pulled out of the incubator about two seasons too early.

The series does boast a breakout performance from newcomer Ashleigh Cummings. It’s just too bad that nothing else about the show lives up to that performance. Instead, any flickering glimmer of quality gets smothered by a drab visual palette, sluggish plotting and a crushingly dour tone.

Paramount+’s Fatal Attraction takes all the thrills out of the classic thriller, with leaden flash-forwards and stilted dialogue.

While it displays some dazzling visual flair and is plenty ambitious in its scope, like a certain famous Scarecrow, this ponderous revamp doesn’t seem to have much of a brain at all.

Here and Now feels like a rough draft for a TV show that never got refined into a coherent premise. I’ve sat through four hours of it, and I still don’t quite know what it is... other than not worth your time.

The redo--in which Spelling plays the mom of a co-ed who’s fallen for a (gasp!) lesbian (double gasp!) vampire--is still solidly silly and spectacularly cheesy.

A thoroughly mild, easily digestible sitcom that unfortunately dips into Disney Channel levels of saccharine too often to merit a recommendation. It’s a hard show to hate, but without Elba to anchor it, it’d be so lightweight, it’d disintegrate in the air like a dandelion.

A lot of his [Nate Bargatze's] jokes felt weirdly dismissive of the very industry the Emmys are supposed to be honoring. I’m all for taking the hot air out of a self-important awards show, but this actually ruined the vibe of the whole show. .... But the ceremony also threw in a few quick nostalgia hits to keep us entertained, like Gilmore Girls stars Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel reuniting on their Stars Hollow porch. These kind of moments are what the Emmys do best.

A show like Conviction, which is fine but not terribly inspiring.

[The actors are] saddled with unlikable characters, a distasteful infidelity plot and an erratic tone that never quite finds itself.

It doesn’t always hit on all cylinders, but it delivers the fireworks we’re looking for from a show like this. It’s like a battering ram slamming through a screen door: not very subtle, but undeniably effective.

Across the board, Disjointed is marred by very broad, yell-y acting, with the cast straining to sell woeful jokes that range from tired pothead stereotypes (boy, are they forgetful!) to vulgar double-entendres.

It’s crass and formulaic, and a lot of the jokes boil down to “Hey, that old guy sure doesn’t act old!” But these seasoned sitcom veterans know how to sell a punchline to a live studio audience.

The adults are as hilariously clueless as you’d dare hope, the kids fling zingers like they’ve been mainlining All About Eve, and the series’ unexpected heart actually answers the question, “What’s your damage?” In short, Heathers slays.

The Terminal List‘s plot defies logic, if you stop to think about it for even a minute, but it confidently shoves its way past any such concerns. It’s utterly humorless, too, punctuated by crude bursts of graphic violence. ... The cast is talented, to be sure, but they’re just going through the motions here.

As interesting as Bull‘s juror-research aspects are, the actual courtroom scenes are over-the-top, with witnesses arguing with lawyers (and, in one case, assaulting them) from the stand.

Iron Fist Season 2 marks an improvement over its well-derided freshman run, but still lacks punch.

The framing device the ABC version uses to bring us into and out of the story is so clunky, it’s not worth discussing. ... The whole endeavor feels like the Disney ride version of Dirty Dancing: cleaner, prettier and way frothier than the already frothy real thing.

It’s almost shameless how quickly Mac plows through the “classics,” including using soot and packing tape to lift a fingerprint, and I’m still unsure of what principle he uses exactly to outwit a biometric scanner. But these quick fixes remain a good part of the fun. ... It deviates from the comparatively “lone wolf” nature of the original, though that’s not necessarily to its detriment; it simply makes it more familiar, CBS procedural-y.

See relies on graphically gory battle scenes to carry a largely incoherent story, but I found myself giggling far more often than its creators intended. You almost have to admire its goofy confidence… as wrongheaded as it might be.

All of Alex’s quirks (she has a tendency to spit while talking) and surgical brilliance (practically on a whim, she pulls off a heart transplant procedure that only four others have managed before her) can’t mask the grim fact that she’s ultimately a collection of threadbare drama-series clichés. ... Even worse, the show’s supporting characters are all some combination of bland, unbelievable, and/or reprehensible.

Hershey’s commitment to the role is impressive, but it’s not enough to follow Damien into the schlockiest circle of TV hell.

The Orville feels like a vanity project, plain and simple, and while it might be fun for MacFarlane to run around shooting phasers and playing Captain Kirk, it’s not much fun to watch. Because it doesn’t work as comedy. It doesn’t work as sci-fi. It just doesn’t work at all.

The whole enterprise just feels very phoned-in. LeBlanc appears mostly disinterested during his scenes, and the script doesn’t bother to give Adam any character traits beyond “a slightly less dumb version of Joey.”

There are a few consistent bright spots, including party-girl Stephanie’s interactions with DJ’s annoying (sorry!) kids; the original series’ now-twentysomething fans will likely identify with her more than any other character.

Nothing particularly clever happens as the heroes endeavor to extricate themselves from their respective predicaments in the second half; you keep waiting for it, but aside from a bit of pickpocketing... nope.

We’ve got multi-animal assaults, a luxury jet that would make S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Zephyr jealous, new characters and a “Phase Two” twist that has upped the stakes, putting one hero in particular in a frightful situation.

Arrow is back with--thankfully--what promises to be one of its more grounded, grittier seasons ever. ... Perhaps the best news is that the fifth and final round of flashbacks are, one could argue, as compelling as the current-day narrative.

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow remains an odd bird. ... The better news is that once aboard the ship, the ensuing backstory on the Legends’ predicament tees up a rollicking, rat-a-tat recap of their off-season flitting through time.

The only redeeming factor here is Cohen, who does an admirable job making all of this as fun as possible.

All told, the new Battle feels more like a skirmish.

All told, the “new-ish” Designated Survivor seems serviceable, if not (though understandably) in the same league as the venerable White House drama it aims to emulate.

There’s a lot more afoot in Season 2--and that’s a good thing.

Harry is a classic romcom for both better and worse. ... But to quibble with Harry, when it sticks at least the first of its two landings and left even this hardhearted bastard misty-eyed, feels like the equivalent of saying that if love isn’t perfect, it isn’t worth it. It is worth it.

The new Password is… not bad? And even a lot of fun at times. No, I’m still not a fan of the set, which has none of the coziness from the (deep cut alert!) Allen Ludden-hosted era, but instead seems dictated by the law that every primetime game show since 1999 has to evoke Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. ... But the gameplay is faithful to that which we all know (save for a flourish or two), and the proceedings are overseen by a pretty perfect host.

Swann makes for a solid (and tall) team leader, though it takes at least one episode too many to shine any light on the past trauma that defines Mackey/has her “shields” up, while Lasance has great fun with Dempsey’s comparatively laid-back persona. Narkle, I want to say, is the big standout as Evie — winningly sassy and arguably the “most Australian” of the bunch — while Sagar was a runner-up until his character started acting a little too free-spirited in later episodes.

The Zoe Saldaña-led spy thriller’s sophomore run is fantastic, and stands as one of the year’s best TV shows.