David Hinckley

Stranger things have happened, but it's going to take some powerful wizardry to whip Making the Band into must-see TV. [24 March 2000]

Some of the mystical stuff in The Defenders remains just that: mystical. But after a couple of episodes, and a couple of fights that resemble high-tech barroom brawls, viewers will get the rhythm of the story.

Gleeson does a first-rate job with a character we’ve seen before, the tormented cop who plunges into a battle where he’s seemingly outflanked and outgunned. Treadaway is suitably troubling as a kid who represses such waves of rage and frustration that we don’t doubt it could explode somewhere. That the causes of his rage play as clichés doesn’t make him less menacing, though it makes the larger story less than subtle. Call it a solid campfire yarn.

Thought-provoking and melancholy, like all good F. Scott Fitzgerald stories, The Last Tycoon delivers a good summer watch. ... All this said, The Last Tycoon has taken some critical heat, and not without cause. It has several unsparkling passages and weak spots.

It feels less bold than familiar, and thus, in its own way, perhaps too quickly comfortable.

The Defiant Ones sends you away admiring the two guys who made the big score.

It’s not a dealbreaker of an idea to take a famous historical figure and put him or her into a world that makes his or her life more relatable to young folks who come along several centuries later. It works better, though, if the modern trappings flavor the historic character, rather than the other way around.

Happily, in spite of the plot labyrinth that any conspiracy theory naturally creates, Salvation keeps its story understandable and makes us keep wanting to know what happens next.

Power has turned into a stronger show as it’s gone along because it knows how to accelerate the action and keep the characters compelling without taking the seductive path of becoming a lavish soap. ... Besides Sikura, Naughton and Loren also shine in the opener.

GLOW is not to be confused with a lecture on sociology and female empowerment in the workplace. It’s sprinkled with soap and isn’t above focusing on some of those body parts itself. But even if professional wrestling bores you to tears, GLOW spins some stories that ring true.

Created by John Singleton with Eric Amadio and Dave Andron, Snowfall is a good-looking production. It gets its music from turntables and boomboxes and it reminds us that South Central Los Angeles, for all its notoriety, has a lot of tree-lined streets and perfectly decent houses with front yards. It also reminds us that crack cocaine was not so much a brand new problem as the consequence of several larger and longer-simmering problems.

Calling Blood Drive a rom-com would be stretching things, but it is refreshing to see that love can still bloom in a world where, if you softly whispered, “I would die for you,” most of the population would take you up on the offer.

The good news is that it can be better understood even by raw rookies. More to the point, it’s worth the effort, because Tatiana Maslany gives one of the finest performances on contemporary television.

It’s amusing at times, provocative at times, because I Love Dick often explores the practice of contemporary navel-gazing by satirizing it.

The series doesn’t go too deeply into several issues raised about Playboy over the years, like exploitation, objectification, and elitism. Instead, when it comes to controversy, American Playboy seems to focus primarily on the accusation that because it flaunted naked women, Playboy was obscene.

It’s hard to assess much of the acting here because most of the actors are confined by a script that swings between harsh judgments and moments of deep sentimentality that almost feel as if they were included to be compensatory.

There’s still plenty of humor, always bending toward the absurd, and Archer’s time travel has not stripped him of his signature phrases, attitude or fondness for bourbon and wordplay.

Even more in the second season than the first, Home Fires is an ensemble piece. ... It’s precisely this approach, telling lots of little stories whose war connections differ widely, that gives Home Fires a ring of truth.

There’s a fair amount of darkness in this story, because the lives it chronicles were not easy. There’s also a fair amount of humor. Mostly there’s admiration for three women who in a very short time accomplished things their world saw no reason to think they could.

Hap and Leonard is also a case where six episodes feels just about right. There’s time to have fun, meet some people, tell a story and leave while everyone’s still enjoying the party. As they should.

It’s not feel-good television. In the first two seasons it was very good television, and the third season has the elements to become just as compelling.

It’s not quick or easy to watch. It’s also not easy to forget.

When We Rise doesn’t pick up a story at its beginning and doesn’t leave a story with an ending. What it delivers is a game-changing saga from the middle.

Blacklist: Redemption is a sturdy show built on a smart premise.

Full of fast-paced banter and pop culture lines, Riverdale starts this road trip as a fine ride.

One of the best shows on television. Just as long as you realize it has moments that will make you feel really really sad.

Sad as the coda to Bright Lights became, it’s a story with a whole lot of heart.

Stylish, charming and thoroughly engaging.