Alan Sepinwall

As Danny, Dornan makes a fine and necessarily sweaty foil for Dinklage, though the paralleling of his own ruined work and home life to Villechaize’s never quite works. ... It’s a searing and vulnerable turn from Dinklage.

Thwaites doesn’t have anything near the gravitas required to pull off this self-righteously vicious approach. If you’re going to say “Fuck Batman,” that’s your right. But you’d better back it up with more than what Titans has to offer, or you just seem like a frustrated poseur who wants to seem much tougher and cooler than you can ever hope to be.

Camping is not an easy watch, even when things are relatively peaceful among the group. But the performances are all strong, and the writing tends to find more empathy for its characters--Kathryn included--than they often have for one another.

A delightful second season. ... The voice cast is overflowing with performances so sharp and indelible, it makes it hard to look at the actors in other roles without thinking of them being menaced by disembodied furry penises. As Jessi’s Hormone Monstress, Maya Rudolph remains first among equals, perfectly capturing the way that puberty descends upon girls differently than boys.

The first three suggest it can comfortably hold a wide range of stories and tones, albeit with flaws.

The revival, again run by Emmy-winning creator Diane English, is conscious that the world has changed in the 20 years since we last saw Murphy and friends. The problem is that Murphy Brown itself really hasn’t, and that does more to tarnish the real show’s legacy than anything else.

Indecisiveness puts Mr Inbetween a notch below Barry and Killing Eve, but it’s an entertaining--and mercifully concise--watch.

The audacity and eccentricity of the thing comes as a welcome jolt to a Peak TV universe where too many shows are capable but familiar, coherent but dull. Is it real? Hell if I know. Is it entertaining? Absolutely.

Sorry for Your Loss knows what kind of story it’s telling, how to tell it well and how to avoid many of the inherent pitfalls that would instantly repel audiences. It’s good--and an early feather in the cap of this young operation.

The First is under no burden to be as quippy or feel-good as The Martian, as awestruck as The Right Stuff, as gee-whiz as Apollo 13 or From the Earth to the Moon. But it needs to have some compelling reason to tell this story, in this way, and it never really finds one.

Emotionally and sociologically, it’s a much more complex story, with a lot of insightful and empathetic things to say about a generation of kids who have grown up with social media as part of their lives. And characters like Kevin, Chloe and school basketball star DeMarcus (Melvin Gregg) come to life in poignant and unexpected ways, even considering the emotional pivot Season One took by the end.

June and Oscar’s relationship toggles back and forth between elaborate banter and awkward small talk, just as Forever itself shifts between kitchen-sink realism and stranger detours. Rudolph’s much better at bridging those seemingly incompatible parts, whereas the Oscar that so easily makes his wife laugh bears very little resemblance to the boring dentist who makes her cry inside.

Carrey is wonderful, making Jeff feel like a fully-realized person, even as Holstein and the other writers can’t always decide where the naive children’s show host ends and the man playing him begins. ... The rest of the show is a mixed bag, much of it feeling like the Showtime quirky dramedy formula (see also: United States of Tara, SMILF) on full blast. ... Carrey’s worth the price of admission, though.

Mayans M.C. is basically Sons Season Eight with the names changed. If that notion excites you, enjoy.

It’s a show that knows exactly what it wants to be and is mostly quite successful at it.

The episodes work better when they focus on action and spectacle (like a slasher movie climax inside the gingerbread house from the story of Hansel and Gretel) than when they’re going directly for big laughs.

The first four episodes of Season Three (it premieres Sunday) are more relaxed and confident than anything it’s done to date, and it already felt like one of TV’s most self-assured hangouts.

Like its protagonist, the series keeps finding beauty and splendor in the mundane. And there’s tremendous warmth in the bond between Ernie and this kid, and among all the Lodge members. Again, it’s slow. It’s strange bordering on self-indulgent.

While this new batch of episodes isn’t exactly a laugh riot, it’s weirder than its predecessor, and not just because Henig has an unnerving, wide-eyed stillness that serves the early episodes well.

When both are in balance (Season Two’s arc with Vee), the series feels special, and like nothing else even within Peak TV. When they’re not (as was the case in the riot season), it can be hard to see how the two halves are part of the same show, for quality reasons as much as tonal ones. Season Six is in that more uneven vein.

The plot unfolds at such a leisurely pace that, despite strong performances from Spacek (as Henry’s sundowning mother Ruth) and others, the many winks to the official King catalog can’t help initially overwhelming this cover band version of it. ... The series has fully come into its own [by the seventh episode], and the King allusions turn into treats for those who recognize them rather than distracting reminders of classics this newcomer can’t hope to live up to.

Three of the premiere’s four sketches are largely forgettable. ... On the whole all three skits seem less like fully fleshed-out comic ideas and more like excuses to establish each character’s archetypal traits for use in bits down the road.

Sharp Objects is at no point fun, but is executed at such a remarkable level that it’s as thrilling as it is tragic.

Even beyond the imbalanced plot/time ratio, there's a flatness--and cheapness--to be found across the whole run. For every one dynamic scene, whether straight-up superhero action(*) or simply a moment involving many characters bouncing off each other at once, there are at least a half-dozen lifeless two-person conversations.

Sheridan’s movies are familiar but tight and thoughtful genre pieces. Expanding his stories out to eight hours gives them a more mechanical, wearying feeling as the characters keep cutting new heads off of the narrative hydra.

Pose struts so confidently and quickly down its narrative catwalk that you'll barely feel the time go by as characters strive to constantly reinvent themselves in a world that seems to have little use or compassion for them.

With each new revelation, each new flashback that adds additional context to one of last season’s flashbacks, it begins to feel less like a sensitive teen drama than like one of those forgettable Lost rip-offs that thought the key to success was introducing five new questions for every old one that gets answered. ... And each additional reason, each additional season, dilutes the impact of when we first heard [Hannah’s story].

It’s compulsively watchable, emotionally engaging, and almost always one step ahead of where you think it’s going.