Angelica Jade Bastien

The first four episodes of its final season were made available to critics, and they are for the most part strong and deliciously entertaining. But certain issues linger. ... Lush visuals serve as a counterpoint to the sparseness of the writing in the dramatic scenes. Regarding Molly and Issa strengthening their relationship: It doesn’t quite work. Their friendship, in all its fraught yet intimate nature, deserves a meatier reconciliation.

The show has so far proven to be a complex, engaging, and even thrilling work of adaptation. But if the writers and artists bringing it to life can’t properly grapple with the questions they seek to illuminate or push its visual dimensions further, the series won’t touch the hem of greatness within its reach.

It is a masterwork that puts into the spotlight the sheer power and communion that can be found with visual storytelling. This is a series not so much witnessed but felt.

Them primarily feels empty during the first half of its run. But episode five, “Covenant I” — which is, notably, directed by the show’s only Black director, Zola’s Janicza Bravo — turns the show from a grating, hollow depiction of Blackness in America to one that revels in degrading its Black characters in a way that left me questioning both the Black creators involved and the studio system that is eager for this kind of work.

So much of what works in this series is because of the sort of heart and strong emotional beats seen in Hannah’s story. But without a precise handling of plotting and a more daring approach to horror, those more intriguing emotional beats falter and fade away. For all its heart, Bly Manor lacks the bravura necessary to work as the love story wrapped in a ghostly tale that it is aching to be.

Nothing in Ratched works. Not the overbearing score desperately trying to replicate the splendor of Bernard Herrmann’s work with Alfred Hitchcock. Not the consistent insistence on shoving various shades of green into every frame. Not the acting, even when executed by performers who have been dynamic elsewhere. Not the rudderless scripts. ... There is nothing redeemable to be found within the folds of these eight hours of television. Nothing!

There’s a lot of potential there to be both curious and heartfelt, as Star Trek has always been, but push it into some new directions narratively and visually, with the animated format allowing the franchise to reach beyond what has come before. But Lower Decks, for all its raucous pleasures, doesn’t quite rise to that occasion.

The direction is lucid, employing a camera that is both curious and kind. The writing is striking for its willingness to delve into uncomfortable territory without ever flinching from the emotional bramble at hand. But what I keep coming back to when I think of I May Destroy You is Coel’s performance. ... It is through Coel’s tremendous performance that the wrenching complications of healing from sexual trauma are seen clearly in the light of day, with an honesty and complexity other series could learn from.

Despite Locke & Key’s heavy thematic dimensions, its potential for exploring the interlocking themes of memory and grief is undercut by a host of issues: its pedestrian score, which doesn’t trust the audience one iota to make obvious connections; its light-handed approach to the story’s horror elements; its tone, which renders the show a young-adult-skewed adaptation of the source material; and a lack of imagination in its approach to memory as a plot dynamic.

The show seeks to pull together notions of mythology, personal lore, and futuristic considerations of very modern problems, but often trips over itself in the process. But every time Picard was starting to lose me, there would be a spark of interest across the screen — a line, a gesture, a moment — that felt piercing and true.

I’ve seen four episodes provided for review, and so far Avenue 5 is silly, sometimes uproarious, and even occasionally moving as it explores these questions. The series takes a minute to find the right rhythm, which it unfortunately can’t maintain with any regularity, but there’s a spark of imagination and enough narrative complication to make the show an intriguing watch as it attempts to find its balance.

You proves itself to be a momentous, darkly spun treat this season that doles out blissful fun while providing fascinating commentary about the nature of desire, and it continues to be a great showcase for Badgley’s wiry menace.

The world of women in Dollface is Pinterest-ready but neither deeply felt nor illuminating about the modern business of being a woman. Dennings has a warm, spiky presence that in and of itself is fun to watch, but she isn’t enough to surmount the issues troubling the show, namely the lack of chemistry between Jules and the rest of the cast.

What it has to say is ultimately rather thin. Furthermore, since it takes its cues from the banal porn fantasies that Eve is inundated with, its imagery isn’t always that revelatory. ... For all of Hahn’s tremendous skill, her presence isn’t enough to paper over the cracks in the series itself, which struggles to find anything bold or new to say about women’s sexuality or coming of age later in life.

Ultimately, it’s an aesthetically and narratively empty enterprise that confuses treacly, saccharine gestures with a complex understanding of interpersonal relationships. The major hurdle to connecting with Modern Love is that the characters have the depth of a thimble. ... Modern Love is at once empty and retrograde. Its stars, and viewers, deserve better.

The show doesn’t seem to know how to handle Bruce’s absence, so he’s mentioned at every turn, making Kate feel less like a person with her own story than someone grafted onto his. ... The visual palette is all muddled grays or treacly, warmly lit flashbacks. The fight scenes lack tension and dynamism, relying on quick cuts and multiple angles to manufacture a false sense of energy. There’s also a missing spark of chemistry among the cast.

While the show is mostly well cast, with the expressive Arica Himmel making a great 12-year-old Rainbow Johnson, the humor in the premiere episode vacillates between being too saccharine and too bluntly reliant on well-worn racial stereotypes.

Why Women Kill is akin to an overly complicated craft cocktail, boasting an intriguing brightness, namely in the form of Goodwin’s performance, but lacking balance in its competing flavors. It’s full of baffling tonal and narrative decisions that undermine what does work about the show.

Each time Sabrina swerves into such uneven territory, it finds its way back to its strengths as a visually rich, darkly comical, and immensely fun to watch piece of wish fulfillment. The show ricochets from near-perfectly pitched dark fantasy to rote considerations of normal life, only striking the right balance when it doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it still has enough magic and wonder to enthrall.

The Case proves especially adept at shifting moods, from the emotional excess of adolescence to the muted tension and fear that snakes through every appearance of courtroom footage. In doing so, director Amy Berg creates not only a portrait of Hae Min Lee but of the people, city, and cultural intersections that shaped both her life and afterlife. This docuseries has a sprawling cast of people, each providing further shading of the emotional and personal truths they carry due to the devastation of this case.

The world-building of Doom Patrol--which gleefully trusts its audience as it leads us into a world where superheroes are firmly established--is riotous and engaging without feeling weighed down by the genre’s typical pitfalls.

The women’s testimonies are indeed moving and necessary, and we should honor their perspectives. But watching those testimonies, I often felt like I was stepping into a private moment, as the women pore over the details of what they experienced, the majority of whom were very young teenagers at the time of their abuse. Aesthetically, the documentary trades in the coarse rhythms of a tabloid.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina proves to be a decadent, malevolent fable with sharp humor, distinct characterization and cast chemistry, opulent visuals, and a striking richness to its world-building.

The actresses at the center of the series lack the chemistry necessary for their bond to have gravitas, and the writing has a clumsy, faux-feminist political bent that undercuts the show’s desire to provide an empowering message about female power.

It’s highly attuned to wide-ranging stylistic experimentation, but lacks the necessary emotional heft and nuance to tackle such topics like the weight of bringing black children into a world that is hostile toward them.