The Mysteries of Laura

Messing is most agreeable, hitting her comedy marks and credible as supercop.

The ingredients here need time to jell, and the writing needs to move beyond generic glop and take advantage of Ms. Messing’s full range of talents.

This is a pleasant and generally enjoyable show that doesn’t overtax the brain. In other words, standard fare for broadcast television.

Viewers who come to TV for smart, serious, sophisticated fare will likely hate this show while viewers just looking for something innocuous and entertaining will be more forgiving.

To be generous, the pilot of Mysteries is bad in ordinary ways that might eventually be fixed by better scripts. The inaugural mystery is forgettable. There are stereotypes galore.

It's two bad shows in one and feels like a USA Network castoff.

It would be a maddening exercise to list all the elements in The Mysteries of Laura that are, at their core, asinine. Suffice it to say, avoid this at all costs. In a fall filled with bad new shows, it's one of the worst.