Diane Werts

Being Mary Jane has been formulated for being fascinating. Now comes the follow-through.

Battlestar Galactica is a worthy successor to Sci Fi's late and much lamented "Farscape." That's about as high as our praise gets. [9 Jan 2005, p.11]

A grabber from the start, quickly moving beyond the sci-fi label to uncharted drama territory. Its tale - executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola - takes place on Earth and in the present day, which should help attract sci-fi-resistant viewers. Even better, its situations are viscerally relatable, hardly as removed from our daily lives as so many other out-there allegories. [11 July 2004, p.11]

Rarely does a TV series premiere as pitch-perfect as "Nightmares & Dreamscapes." But often does a second installment deflate as disappointingly as the subsequent second hour of this summer anthology of mystical imagination adapted from the stories of Stephen King...While the bubble doesn't burst completely, the bravura filmmaking of tonight's first hour sets a standard that's difficult to match on a regular basis, much less in the hour that airs immediately after. It's a "wow!" that's likely to stand as one of TV's most mesmerizing hours of the year. [12 July 2006, p.B21]

It's pretty stock stuff. [23 March 2000]

SPOOKY stuff happens in The Others. Windows open by themselves, ghosts spring out of walls, eerie sounds wail. Yes, indeed, it's spooky. It's spooky how script writers think this sort of stuff is actually effective after so many years of seeing these cues so many times in so many "horror" movies. [4 Feb 2000]

While "No Direction Home" can't turn the American Mastery trick of telling us what makes a cultural titan tick, it probably gets deeper inside the Dylan mystery than any such portrait is likely to. [26 Sep 2005, p.B17]

Thwarted by same-old sitcom scripting, full of adults’ childish bickering and laden with “irony” setups. ... The saving grace for the show, as for Alex, becomes his family. Through the first three episodes, they’re a nicely knit group with real chemistry and real concerns vs. the podcasts-for-dummies approach to his workplace.

There’s a thing called chemistry, which is little evident in the first few episodes here. Fischer and Hudson seem fine sparring, but not all that connected.

The series works overtime to place itself in a “real” world and treat faith earnestly, yet undercuts itself by resorting to every sitcom trick in the TV book.