Daniel D'Addario

The show isn’t perfect: Much is resolved, toward the conclusion, with a dump of exposition, and there are moments when the dialogue isn’t as sharp as the performers. Still, it’s a pleasure to see a show better than it might have been.

Only Miss Havisham pops off the screen, making this an adaptation lacking in a certain balance. ... Miss Havisham’s mansion — cluttered with detritus, almost impassably full of objects — may come to feel like a fitting device on a show on which a couple of breakthrough performances are surrounded by unmetabolized narrative clutter.

The show works a bit like a breezy and brisk collection of linked short stories, constantly moving forward, continually showing new consequences of our own inaction. Keeping the characters flat and underserved, though, makes the lavishly depicted world they inhabit feel less like a matter of concern. ... Clumsy in its delivery of information, “Extrapolations” is also maudlin where “Black Mirror” is icy.

On the Hulu sitcom “UnPrisoned,” Washington’s back to the angle that suits her best — and at the heart of a sweetly intended show of disarming quality.

Without losing sight of the sorrow of Maddie’s story, “School Spirits” manages to be surprisingly sparky and fun — proof positive that there are new stories to tell about the institution no one would ever want to be stuck in for their entire afterlife.

Daisy’s personality is huge, but it’s not just the band over which she’s running roughshod — it’s the show. As a delivery system for two compelling performances, “Daisy Jones & the Six” is well worth watching. But I craved more moments in which it might really sing.

Its theme, the workplace’s encroachment onto all aspects of one’s personal life, seems as resonant at this moment as ever before. The manner it’s explored is fanciful and at times frankly silly, but it’s just enough to serve as intellectual ballast on a show that’s otherwise (mainly) pleasantly goofy.

The conflict between obligations to loved ones and the desire to get out of the game creates tension and interest in the show’s first two episodes, as does genuine chemistry with co-star Catherine Haena Kim. ... The knots in Charlie’s stories are the stuff of pulp novels or — just as good — lightly pleasurable serial TV.

In order for its story to work, the characters have to be where we left them, which is not what almost any of them wanted. But it comes to feel dour, tonally unbalanced — a party one cannot wait to leave.

While the jokes are indeed silly, there’s an edge to Frank’s insistence that feels unpleasant. As Fred, Rowland is an appealing presence, and I also liked Vella Lovell as the pair’s boss. Much of what the animal control does is, in this show’s telling, low-stakes and charmingly offbeat, making room for workplace-comedy bits that could as easily be at an elementary school or a paper supplier. Which is why it feels urgent that the show recalibrate the Frank character.

The ideas are unrewarding enough that the worked-over look of the show grows tiresome, as though it’s covering for a lack in the series’ writing.

With a startling rawness and directness, Heinzerling’s work makes a case for itself as an unusually sensitive and strong outing in its genre.

Finding a way toward helping us know Nell as more than just the charmingly portrayed object of ghostly interest might begin to kick-start this vaguely promising but poorly executed sitcom.

Smart but unshapely literary adaptation, full of good intentions and interesting characters but bloated beyond recognition at 10 hours. ... The only performer who seems to be having much fun is Connie Britton, who devours scenery as Dee Dee.

Surely one of the strongest series yet to launch on Peacock, this streaming drama feels like the best sort of vintage, comfortably spread-out TV. This elegant set of mystery stories allows an established star the time and space to crack a new sort of case, that of how to evolve a familiar persona and bring fans along for the ride.

Ford seems poorly used and out-of-place in this comic milieu; that he’s stiff and uncomfortable is a joke with diminishing returns. Better are his dramatic scenes. ... Whereas Segel is more at sea. An open-hearted performer whose emotional palette is big, bold and easy to read, Segel cannot make Jimmy’s confessions feel special or earned. ... With that in mind, I enjoyed Jimmy’s relationship with Gaby, as the pair of therapists’ chemistry seems to exist beyond words. And his relationship with his daughter Alice, too, felt pleasingly underexplored.

There’s not enough ballast, enough sense of who these characters are outside the most extreme moments of their lives, to keep the show balanced. One remembers a function lawyers and judges play on shows like these: They’re old pros who’ve seen it all, and so correct for the defendants’ tendencies to experience wild emotional swings. Those swings, on “Accused,” are watchable and a lot of fun, but they also mean the show sheds more heat than light.

For older viewers, its format as well as storylines may well conjure nostalgia. For younger ones, I wonder if its sitcom-y rhythms, the way each episode builds around a conflict resolvable in 22 minutes and makes time for an applause-ready cameo, will suit.

Hannah-Jones’ skill with interview subjects and her deftness at drawing small but crucial connections are both so strong that I came to yearn for her to craft a narrative less sweeping — to capture America, for a moment longer, through any of the individual threads she so ably pursues, without the obligation of trying to fit it all within a worthy but increasingly massive project.

Netflix’s pleasingly watchable sports serial. ... “Break Point” makes a strong case for having cameras there to capture what thoughts play out in those moments, and helped convert a onetime serious watcher who hasn’t had time for the sport since Sharapova’s heyday into someone who will be seated for this year’s grand slams. For the filmmakers behind this project, that’s game, set and match.

They hadn’t changed much. Which was (really!) a good thing. The speeches were stem-winding and often strange, and the sense of occasion was alternatingly grave and buoyant in that perfect Globes way. ... Carmichael’s presence grew warmer as the show progressed.

“The Last of Us” can lean too hard on action sequences, which emphasizes the uncanny surreality of the infected. But what lies beneath the chaos is the nascent bond between Joel, a rootless man who’s promised to guard Ellie. ... Through Pascal’s and Ramsey’s performances and some strong writing, this dynamic glimmers with emotion and life.

Elements of this storyline in the first two episodes truly beggar belief, and a sense of boundless evil surrounding the comings and goings of the Philadelphia Police Department and of a single family come to overwhelm the story in moments. And yet Caan and Ramirez are pros, and sell the double experience both characters are having.

Ramón Rodríguez, playing the central detective, makes for a sympathetic and rootable figure. The challenge the show faces will be bringing the story up to his and his costars’ level.

There’s a bit too much dross amid what works. ... Through it all, Daddario proves herself an able performer once again. Even as one wishes something more from the show surrounding her, she makes the part her own.

The issue with Kaleidoscope, though, is that its design is less an ingenious way of moving storytelling forward than the sort of thing a creator, or a streamer, does because it can...The core product just isn’t very good.

Having Goldman play out his story seems at first like a scheme worthy of “Nathan for You,” the series on which Fielder placed notably odd or curious people in situations designed to prise out their unique qualities. Here, though, the game seems a little too obvious, as there’s no second beat here, no reason to have Goldman play it all out other than to explore an unusual personality. For a show with a premise that seems chewily self-referential, here, too much of the motivation in finding Goldman a perfect subject seems to exist on the surface.

Too much of “The Recruit” feels as if it’s on autopilot. The action, bombastic and violent, begins to run together, used as it is to juice interest somewhat at random. ... Give “The Recruit” this much — it ends with a nicely-done cliffhanger, elegantly seeded over the course of the season’s run.