Darren Franich

If you're getting the sense this is a rather bleak comedy, it's important to underline just how breezy the tone of Back is. The ensemble faces their regular miseries with humor and hope, the latter even funnier because it seems so unjustified.

This franchise remains invigorating, though, matching no-look-pass thrills with telling little moments.

After the joy-to-horror onslaught of the first three episodes, the latter parts struggle to balance big speeches with one absolutely ridiculous (if quite cheeky) bit of anti-Thatcherite rebellion. ... At its best, though, It's a Sin brings a unique mix of poignant enthusiasm and simmering sorrow to its tale.

I enjoyed a lot of things about the premiere, even if one final twist left me baffled. The second episode offers promising routes forward — and bends the larger serialized story in a dispiritingly familiar direction.

Everything about Clarice has been done, successfully and terribly and constantly, by a whole generation of CBS procedurals. ... I don't mind gross extremity, but Clarice wants shock value to cover up its sins against basic narrative sense.

It's a straightforward family-sitcom dynamic, loaded up with endearing eccentricity. ... These are rich characters in absurd situations full of quotable dialogue. ... The Great North could be one of the norths. Greats, I mean, greats!

The finale points toward an endgame. And that finale is wonderful, wonderful, ridiculous, and wonderful: A high energy showdown for youth in revolt, alongside a never-more-sensitive portrayal of middle-aged reminiscence. It reaffirms Cobra Kai as one of the cleverest reboots in our nostalgia-drunk era.

Superstore’s always been a delightful sitcom about life in an inhuman consumerist dystopia, and that satiric instinct is on full display when the premiere skips forward to June.

It's a stylish period piece with the rambling-years momentum of a John Irving novel. Luscious production design and a darkly fascinating lead performance duel against mawkish sentiment and a messy final act. It's always fun to watch, even when it's playing emotional checkers.

There are so many obvious things wrong with World Beyond, AMC's bland Walking Dead spin-off for the youth. The main characters are nice, brilliant, and boring.

The whole tone of Ratched feels like a point extremely missed, and it can’t even generate its own upside-down gravity. At times, its rudeness is just crude.

Earlier iterations of Fargo drew a lot of their power from a wide ensemble of curious people. Here, every introductory quirk is immediately annoying. ... It doesn’t help that, as the two characters with most prominence on their respective sides, Schwartzman and Rock are giving two flavors of bad performance.

I can't do justice to the vibrant thrill of the central performances. The bond between Maya and Anna feels unspoken and lived-in, full of sentences that trail off into meaningful glances. ... A totally unique combination of dear-diary authenticity, casual dream-state strangeness, and the genuine wonder of kids figuring out that nobody ever really figures themselves out.

Despite some flat characters, Guadagnino exuberantly spotlights his cast of up-and-comers, especially Corey Knight as a sweetheart soldier with star-spangled boxer briefs. ... Has there ever been a military base this radiant with hedonistic pansexual yearning? I don’t believe it, but these kids are alright.

I’ve seen six episodes, and worry that the momentum drags. This is the kind of show where two sides fight, and then spend half a season preparing to fight again. The eccentric performances are intriguing, though.

I respect their ambition, and hope the series finds its footing. Right now, they're skewering Lovecraft's beliefs but can't compete with his singular horror vision. They're better people making worse art.

Quibi has filleted the franchise into tasteless morsels of contemporary crap. ... These early chapters are talky the way a lot of bad '90s action movies were talky. There is chest-thumping machismo, snarky exposition, and no shortage of goofy exclamations.

This isn’t a slow-burn Netflix drama with all the big plot points lurking in the finale; there are frequent, cheesy, surprising deaths. By the time the romantic triangle heats up, Brave New World has successfully put the “soap” back in “dystopia.”

It is [good]... and then it isn't. You sense lawsuits being avoided in the flat portrayals of the Broderick children. ... Peet plays confused desperation to the hilt, but the awkward structure of this eight-part saga turns her rage repetitive. The actual act of killing gets morseled out as a tension-crating Big Reveal, fodder fro flash-forwards and cliffhangers. [Jun 2020, p.87]

Everyone's cobwebbed in a way-too-busy plot that replaces simmering office park absurdity with dystopian triple-reverses. [Jun 2020, p.88]

Gospel's not for kids, but it reflects the ecstatic innovations that made Adventure Time such a trip. Ward directs every episode and finds moments of religious astonishment alongside gloopy horror, all of it served with chatty humanism and palpable sweetness. ... The result is a new kind of masterpiece: easy to like, easier to worship.

The special is a fun-with-characters piece, not quite the sitcom-Wire of yore. Still, I admire how Schur curls our pandemic reality back to the foundational Parks and Recreation saga of civil service in the face of overwhelming odds. ... A Parks and Recreation Special is a genuine return from one of the best TV series ever made. In a strange way, the sitcom’s faux-documentary structure lends itself well to the videoconferencing conceit.

DuckTales is lovably ridewculous, visually kaleidewscopic, and totally dewpendous. [May 2020, p.88]

Insecure remains funny and moving, a chill show about the hustle. ... There's a bit of specificity missing. [May 2020, p.85]

Whether you’re a Good Fight fan or a newcomer, you’ll get something magic from the premiere. ... I’m more intrigued to see how Good Fight approaches the uber-rich in its other scattered storylines.

I worry the premiere lacks the Bethenny punch. She classed everything up by dressing everyone down. But I remain invested in these women. [Apr 2020, p.70]

The three episodes I've seen of the eight-part season evoke Lenù's expanding political conscience and Lila's boiling rage. This is still sumptuous getaway TV.

Twelve years into the lead role, Odenkirk keeps finding new shades of goofy charisma and freaky desperation, and the Saulification of Jimmy is a performance within a performance. ... Season 5 still feels tangential, juggling placeholder subplots with hysterical continuity.