Credit Check

CSI: NY
(CBS, Wednesdays, 10 p.m.)
Ooh, look, New York's gritty! Hey, wow, the sky's so gloomy! And here's a mystery for you, Sinise: Why are numbers flashing across the screen for no reason? Only the Who's ''Baba O'Riley'' lightens the preposterously glum mood. C+

LAX
(NBC, Wednesday, 8 p.m.)
Real airports aren't exactly fun nowadays, but this sun-splashed opener—set to ELO's prog-rock classic ''Mr. Blue Sky''—and Heather Locklear's smiling face remove all our fears of air marshals and terror alerts. B+

Desperate Housewives
(ABC, Sundays, 9 p.m.)
A peppy and stylish whoosh through history's domestic dregs, inter-twined with a fantastic 3-D style reminiscent of pop-up storybooks. Our fave: the poor Elizabethan forced to sweep up her sloppy hubby's banana peel. A

Veronica Mars
(UPN, Tuesdays, 9 p.m.)
Is she a stuck-up popular girl or a teen muckraker? Mars' bland credits (saved only by the Dandy Warhols' fab ''We Used to Be Friends'') offer few clues. And the notebook-paper gimmick looks cheap. C-

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