Dan Fienberg

The show's foreshadowing isn't always smooth, but it's effective and lulls you into thinking you know every episode's shape, making the fourth, fifth and sixth episodes, which break from format, into standouts.

There's no character I particularly liked, no relationship that seems particularly interesting and no mystery embedded in the pilot to which I'd like to get any answers. Maybe some people will tune in for Pandora and maybe they won't. It's better than The Outpost.

In their best moments, these episodes coast on the charm and precision pluckiness of star Kristen Bell and a decently curated cast of returning and new faces. In its worst moments, the new Veronica Mars struggles to generate tension around a thin and dull season-long arc, and strings along tantalizing and long-necessary character growth for a hypothetical fifth season, eschewing closure for an ending that's ill-considered on several levels.

In the eight episodes sent to critics, I can already tell that once Chinn and the creative team run out of complacent punchlines and tinker a tiny bit with the volume on some of the performances, there's a solidly raucous female-forward comedy germinating here.

This closing run of 13 episodes is the most focused season in years, a steady reminder of how smartly political, energetically funny and devastatingly dramatic this show could be.

It is, indeed, bigger and not better. It's also bigger and not deeper. After establishing this world, we've now had two seasons that have done nothing to enhance the mythology of the Upside Down, to make me more interested in the monsters that dwell there, their goals in our world or justifiable explanations for why stupid scientist-types keep fiddling with this dimensional breach.

There's enough intrigue in the stripped-bare skeleton of O'Malley's book to keep The Rook casually watchable, but even those who haven't read the tome will be able to sense that in a show this gloomy and conventional, opportunities for more colorful characterization and plotting must have been neglected.

Mr. Iglesias isn't bad at all. It lacks the sublime grounding that Rita Moreno and Justina Machado brought to One Day at a Time, but as broad ensemble multi-cams go, this one has its heart in the right place and occasionally tackles topical issues well.

When it's specific and detailed, capturing the depth of Sherman's reporting, it's perceptive and entertaining. ... Less successful are the grandstanding beats where Ailes walks into a situation controlled by some thinly written snowflake duck and makes a big speech dominated by Fox News talking points and then everybody claps at his insight and magnetism. Those are clunky and on-the-nose.

This series is acceptable-but-unremarkable, the occasional perceptive or funny bit lost amid the inoffensively stale or inevitably dated. Watching all 21 minutes of any Alternatino episode won't cause any real pain or irritation, but your life would be lived more efficiently by waiting and checking out whichever clip or two Comedy Central decides it hopes to see go viral each week.

Fortunately, the reasons for amusement with Los Espookys extend well beyond the title. The half-hour series, from creators Julio Torres, Ana Fabrega and Fred Armisen, is a droll delight, a low-key and absurdist romp in that Baskets or What We Do in the Shadows vein of shows that absolutely won't tickle everybody but will probably generate fierce devotion among the audience able to communicate on its strange wavelength.

Jett is probably a little too derivative for its own good, but through five of its first nine episodes, it marks another fun-but-not-too-deep entry in Cinemax's stable of expanded B-movie genre pieces. And it's a great showcase for Gugino.

Thus far, thankfully, the return to Pose isn't disappointing, and its promises, progressive and dramatic, are largely delivered upon.

Through its first six episodes, NOS4A2 is a shockingly unscary horror drama prone to ill-considered detours and over-explained supernatural machinations, while wallowing in entirely too many blue-collar cliches and variable Massachusetts accents. A solid cast, some showy makeup and the occasional inspired bit of imagery all get the life sucked right out of them, the only way that the show's clunky pun of a title is at all worthwhile.

Big Little Lies is returning in summer blockbuster season and with Streep in control, the series may be shifting from dark comedy, mystery and commentary on gender politics to full-on actorly action. I might miss the murder mystery a little, but this is more than a good substitute.

It's a decent enough origin story carried by a surprisingly good ensemble cast and the assertive direction of Len Wiseman.

The six new episodes are littered with elements to admire and respect when you aren't bogged down in feeling like a show that once appeared to have a lot to say is no longer participating in the conversation on the same level.

Harrelson's work, and perhaps the entire All in the Family episode, peaked with a marvelously off-key rendition of the theme song. ... The pacing of the Jeffersons episode was far better than that of All in the Family, or maybe it's just that I appreciated how well Foxx and Sykes were working off each other. Throw in format legends like Jackée Harry and the great Marla Gibbs, and this became a multicam master class.

The characters on Vida often behave stupidly, but this is a smart, smart show, one that looks at culture on high and low levels, from debates about the flavor and significance of Valentina hot sauce to a point-by-point breakdown of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird.

What you never get here is a single character or idea that comes across as fresh or distinctive or takes the genre any place even vaguely new.

[Creator/director Ava DuVernay] sometimes prioritizes the intellectual over the emotional or intentionally leaves big gaps in time and perspective. But her choices never feel haphazard. The material mines profound outrage, and the note-perfect ensemble lends it heart.

Deadwood: The Movie gives the show an end and neither diminishes nor burnishes the series' quality. And that, again, is enough.

Whatever L.A.'s Finest is, it isn't bad on an outlier level. It's as good as much of what counted as broadcast television dramas this past season. This is not in any way intended as a compliment, just my acknowledgement that as thoroughly mediocre as it is, L.A.'s Finest feels like the sort of show that, in a different era, easily could have attracted a healthy audience on broadcast.

The Society is not especially fresh and it's clumsy and clunky in a number of frustrating ways, but it's also occasionally thoughtful and perceptive and, as it progresses, it builds moral quandaries and tension well. Throw in a flawed-but-solid cast and by the end of the season, I was ready for more.

It's a complicated and occasionally fascinating depiction of female friendship boasting a pair of fantastic performances from Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini. It's a decent and sometimes perceptive examination of grief. And it's a very thin and rushed murder mystery that isn't exactly perfectly suited to 10 half-hour episodes.

It's not Bojack Horseman. It's a lighter, looser, more fanciful series, one in touch with a far wider emotional palette, one in which joy and emotional release are actually possible. ... But in short order, Tuca & Bertie has become another Netflix animated gem for adults, one that can be placed in a conversation with Bojack, Big Mouth and F Is for Family.

Over its six-episode run, The Hot Zone fails to generate any meaningful gravity or more than scattered substance, but it nails a mood of mounting paranoia and the visceral impact of a solid, jump-in-the-dark horror movie. ... Come for the barf bags of blood, the monkey autopsies and lots and lots and lots of close-ups on microscope slides and pipettes; stay for the reminder that some of this stuff is real and ongoing.

A flashy, smartly meta, often funny and very solidly cast, the pilot leaves a bit of a bad taste. Part of that is surely intentional and accurately reflects the tone of the source material. Whether that will continue and intensify after the initial hour, the only one available to review for the moment, remains to be seen.