Breakthrough with Tony Robbins

It's an upbeat, glass-half-full hour with some tough love from Tony, who also dispenses sound couples therapy advice. But the hour also feels facile, and rushed.

The inspiration can be heavy-handed, but how can you not feel for the couple?

Though my tolerance for tear jerking in-your-face, feel-good makeover shows is comparatively limited, I don't want to come down too hard on Breakthrough, however much it commodifies misfortune or stage-manages reality.

I'm probably not the best judge of NBC's Breakthrough with Tony Robbins, which struck me as way more Tony Robbins than breakthrough.

These situations are undeniably emotional, and the Stegners' situation is certainly relatable. Yet that very authenticity is what makes Breakthrough aggravating--presenting, as it does, serious hardships before addressing them with the depth of a Hallmark card.

At first these actions, which feel extreme, seem to have little relation to the problems at hand. It soon becomes clear, however, that they do. As he promises, Robbins is attacking deeper problems, not symptoms, and as with any good infomercial, the results look compelling on the screen.

Easily the worst of the bunch--in fact, there's a good argument to be made that it's one of the most atrocious TV shows of all time--is NBC's Breakthrough with Tony Robbins.