ABC

CHICAGO – The new ABC dramedy “My Generation” is all concept and no execution. Creator Noah Hawley (the vastly-superior “The Unusuals”) came up with an idea and found a talented cast and the creativity died shortly thereafter. The foundation is a clever and inspired one but the writing staff adds nothing more than cliche to it, piling on characters who feel barely two-dimensional and rarely finding a genuine moment in the lackluster and bloated series premiere.

CHICAGO – Courteney Cox returns tonight to try and overcome the perception that her very-clever and consistently-improving “Cougar Town” is not a success. What better way to make instant waves than to bring former co-star on “Friends” Jennifer Aniston to the party? The result is yet-another funny half-hour of television for a program that seems to get better by the week.

CHICAGO – Every year, there’s a program or two for which it is strikingly easy to recognize exactly what people will love about it and what many will equally hate about it. Said programs are usually the product of creators with strong and identifiable styles and Jerry Bruckheimer is certainly one of those. Even casual fans would recognize his slick approach to the medium and your tolerance for that is going to determine your judgment on ABC’s “The Whole Truth,” a program that works for me but might not work for you.

CHICAGO – The programming executive that thought “Better With You” would fit well between the reasonably-good “The Middle” and the spectacular “Modern Family” clearly has no idea how television comedy has changed in the last few years. To call “Better With You” — with its laugh track, cheesy music, and horrible punchlines — old-fashioned is an insult to nostalgic comedies. It’s just bad.

CHICAGO – ABC’s “Detroit 1-8-7” attempts to do for Motown what “NYPD Blue” did for the Big Apple by detailing the personal and professional lives of a group of tough cops in a very tough city.

CHICAGO – The best thing about the third-season premiere of the consistently-entertaining “Castle” may be that they’ve finally taken that stupid “Turner & Hooch” line out of the introduction to the hit mystery show. Other than that, the show pretty much picks up where it left off with two of the most charismatic stars on television often disguising the fact that the writing doesn’t live up to their talents.

Video Game Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – When we first heard about a Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS video game tie-in to the mega-franchise of ABC reality shows known as “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” the mind reeled at the possibilities. Would the game be merely a series of conversation choices like some of the cheesy dating video games of the ’90s? How would the Wii-mote get involved?

CHICAGO – Last week we covered several of the more notable rookie programs of the just-passed TV year and their inaugural TV-on-DVD season sets. This week, we’re back with a few of the veterans of the field, three shows that have never become critical smashes but have all developed their own devoted followings for good reason.

CHICAGO – We have written several times about the strength of the 2009-2010 television season with an incredible number of rookie hits and many of those great programs are now coming out on DVD.

CHICAGO – A Blu-ray review of the controversial final season of “Lost” is not the place to get into arguments over the quality of the actual finale, so I’ll get my opinion out of the way quickly and then we can discuss the Blu-ray release more than the ending specifically — the final season of “Lost” is arguably the best final season of any program ever and the last episode is the perfect bookend for a show too ambitious to be truly influential.