Helix isn’t always laughable, though, and at times can be pretty gripping. The makeup and props departments also have done their jobs well. But can this story sustain itself for 13 hours within a claustrophobic frozen outpost? Crises and mini-revelations are dispensed with the frequency of commercial breaks.

Quantico moves along briskly without nailing down an overall believability.

Rodeo Girls so far has stopped short of giving its stars and their story lines enough rope to hang themselves. Instead It manages to jingle jangle jingle its way toward an overall entertaining first hour of animal desires occasionally played out on horseback.

The Art of More is high on production values but low on basic believability with its discombobulated tale of two very amoral New York art auction houses.

The Bible has the misfortune of looking cheap in comparison to the visual feast provided by the preceding Vikings. And the acting isn't nearly strong enough to overcome this.

McCormack, in designer stubble, is no better than ordinary in the lead role. Nor are the cases at hand all that compelling.

The opening hour ends with an unexpected, big boom of a cliffhanger designed to bring viewers back for more. In that it’s unique. Otherwise The Brave is broad-stroked and pro forma in highly volatile times both at home and abroad.

Beyond selling the glamour of it all, Pan Am may be very hard-pressed to come up with weekly storylines that impel viewers to climb aboard.

There’s always a very outside chance that Son of Zorn could have the legs of an ALF in the annals of hybrids turned into weekly sitcoms. But this already looks like pretty thin stuff that’s not worth writing home about--not even from the planet Zephyria.

Being neck-deep in a muddy, murky eerie canal gets tiresome in due time. And the performances aren’t all that hot either in this adaptation of Michael Marshall Smith’s 2007 novel.

A cute little closing segment isn't enough to offset all the forced comedy preceding it.

For better or worse, Sean Saves the World is exactly what he wants it to be--an old school, joke-loaded, histrionic showcase for himself.

Night Shift won’t make anyone forget the glories of NBC’s ER at the height of its powers. It shows some signs of being a passable summertime drama series, though.

There are moments in Here and Now that threaten to turn the corner and reward a viewer’s patience. But just as quickly, things bog down again. The acting isn’t at fault, but the preachments and overall ponderousness are.

The premise may not sound shopworn. But CBS’ Instinct otherwise is extraordinarily ordinary at best as a midseason replacement for the failed Wisdom of the Crowd.

There are signs of improvement, though, even if Mullally tends to over-do it in the "brash and bold" department while holdover Christian Slater remains in place as the downgraded former head dude known only as Oz.

Buoyed by two blow-away performances by U2, Fallon got past a rather obsequious start in which he walked viewers through the basic mechanics of a monologue and said he’d be doing 10 minutes worth every night in case the Jay Leno faithful might have thought otherwise.

For now, it's a disappointing polemic that mainly offends by being lazily or awkwardly executed more often than not.

The whole enterprise seems way too wobbly to walk upright under its own power.

On CSI: Cyber, Ryan and her team act very swiftly, oftentimes preposterously so. Computer graphics whiz and buzz. And then, just like that, another suspect is chased down and vetted by Ryan, who seemingly needs nothing more than a burp or a twitch to determine who the bad guys are and who they are not.

Rosewood can be fun in spots, but more often is way over-cooked.

Unfortunately, Bomb Girls is affixed with an oft-overwrought and at times just plain clunky script.

Although laboring like the rest of them in servitude to a mostly nondescript script and a standard issue Marvel plot, Rheon makes the most of his latest dastardly character. Villainy still suits him, even if the drop in quality from Game of Thrones to Marvel’s Inhumans is both obvious and precipitous.

A show that again shows us what we already know. Politicians are a collective group of crooks who very seldom get what they deserve.

Subtract its clunky dialogue, ludicrous plot devices and empowerment nonsense, and you're left with its heightened sense of pulchritude.

I liked this first episode better the first time around. Upon further review, its excesses and kitchen sink humor aren't wearing as well.

This possibly could work, and isn't entirely unwatchable.

This is one hell of a hellish slog toward a redemption that isn’t really earned, given what Ebenezer once did to Bob Cratchit’s desperate wife, a woman of color played by Vinette Robinson.