Inkoo Kang

Despite its more ersatz premise, Everything's Gonna Be Okay benefits both from Thomas' signature quirks and maturation as an artist, showcasing his dry, wise, singular voice.

None of the stories in Little America — which counts among its executive producers Master of None co-creator Alan Yang — is as powerful or as perfectly crafted as Lena Waithe's "Thanksgiving," but a couple get mighty close, definitively making this series Apple TV+'s first great show.

Despite the three-and-a-half-year gap between The Young Pope and The New Pope, the nine-part sequel series feels remarkably contiguous with its predecessor. ... Occasionally, The New Pope flirts with transcendence.

This tale of unusual decency and competence feels nearly as depressing as the criminal sadism they’re investigating. Duvall and Rasmussen are based on actual detectives, but the show’s universe is so bleak they don’t entirely feel a part of it—or of ours. Unbelievable so meticulously catalogs the endless multitudes, terrifying randomness, and near inevitability of darkness that it makes it hard to see the light.

Loopy, winding, and heavily atmospheric, this tropical noir finds just the right balance between social critique and Lynchian dreaminess.

Judy isn’t distinct enough from her brothers. Worse yet, she occupies the same role that so many of McBride’s other female creations have before her: that of a screeching scold. ... All of which might be forgivable if the series dug deeper into its other ostensible targets: televangelism, the prosperity gospel, and broader aspects of evangelical culture. But at least in its first six episodes, the show barely scratches the surface before reverting to a more conventional crime-dramedy mode.

The show’s humor is key to its appeal, but in the weaker midseason episodes, it can feel like spoonfuls of sugar to make the pedantic bitterness go down. ... And yet for all its faults, it’s difficult to think of another show that stares so unblinkingly at the most egregious excesses of American capitalism and bureaucracy and injustice, and does so while rarely losing sight of the humanity of the people, especially the women, involved.

It’s the most organic and tactically nimble post-#MeToo comeback thus far ... His crackerjack flash is starkly subdued. Ansari probably makes about three too many earnest appeals to our better nature and the need to live in the present. But this is still the work of a comedy veteran who channels righteous fed-up-ness and critiques obliviousness with relatable flair.

Especially in its early episodes, Tuca & Bertie feels like the manic lovechild of BoJack and Broad City. ... An ambitious mainstreaming of feminist art. Haddish embodies an archetype we’ve seen her as several times now (as well as a character whose tragic history is not dissimilar to the actress’s early years), but Tuca & Bertie allows her to fill in those outlines in fascinating new ways. Wong’s comedic persona is of a wild child too (if a reformed one), which makes the dramatic shadings of her performance a revelation.

Between Wainwright’s crisp, fair-minded scripts and star Suranne Jones’ flawless performance, it’s tempting to believe that Anne Lister was the most fascinating person of the 19th century.

In the new season, Barry’s morose self-introspection (and self-pity) becomes hard to stomach, but at least the rest of the show’s characters gain histories in satisfying new ways.

The fourth and final season falls somewhat from the series peak of Season 3 but still bids a splendid farewell to Rob and Sharon on an elegiac but thrilled-to-keep-carrying-on note.

The result is bracing, funny, informative, and occasionally, like Last Week Tonight, a little dry. But it’s homework that you wanna do, even if you never forget that it’s ultimately an assignment. I don’t consider that description a knock on the show.

Arnold’s can’t-stop-getting-into-political-arguments-with-strangers-on-Facebook energy goes a long way in The Hunt for the Trump Tapes, particularly when he injects some self-aware humor about his status as a has-been. ... When it comes to the purported point of the show, though, Arnold fails to deliver, at least on opening night.

Yes, it stumbles out of the gate and meanders for a while. But it gradually returns, confidently and furiously, to its greatest strengths: an insider’s indictment of the reality TV-making process and a candidly complicated exploration of female mentorship in a male-run industry.

You can feel the absence of things left out or glossed over, a tingle that lets you know you’re being manipulated--and not especially well. The new HBO documentary Robin Williams: Come Into My Mind should give viewers a lot of these tingles.

The phrase that recurred in my mind as I watched C.B. Strike was "not enough": not enough plot, not enough characterization, not enough suspense, not enough of its own DNA. But the pang of "not enough" was most keen when it came to the scenes between Burke and his co-star Holliday Grainger, who faultlessly embodies the earnest, thrill-seeking Robin.

Dietland is a riveting whirligig of a show: a tale of self-discovery, a manifesto about sizeism, a screed against consumer capitalism and a mystery about a radical feminist terrorist cell that uses vigilante violence to punish rapists, pedophiles and... magazine editors. The anger it evinces against misogyny in the first two episodes is raw, searing and justified, but also a tad unfocused.

In this deferential retelling, McCain is a lifelong public servant who only erred when he wasn't true to himself, with no ideological bent in his mission to make America exceptional again. It's certainly an inspirational portrait; it's also a blatant exercise in legacy management.

The new series is simply too old-fashioned to feel relevant. ... Worst of all, the most memorable jokes involve Alex repeatedly falling down.

If no one in the new Fab Five stands out like original fan faves Carson Kressley or Jai Rodriguez (save grooming expert Jonathan Van Ness for his obnoxious attempts to become a meme), the straight guys are surprisingly memorable.

It's difficult to tell apart the military personnel in the pilot, and it isn't until the end of the third hour that a larger narrative arc emerges. But the first half of the season (the portion screened for critics) is taut, brisk, moving and gorgeous.

For the most part, The Long Road Home would rather stick to stock scenes and manipulative sympathy-seeking that add up to "support the troops" messaging than tell messily human stories. Thus the miniseries is the latest pop-culture military production to fail to understand that you can powerfully do both.

I remain interested in Season 2's idiosyncratic storylines, but I found my attention drifting whenever the series time-traveled to Maria's mildly traumatizing teenage years. There's only so much of someone else's psychoanalytical sessions that I'm able to find interesting.

Tin Star's attempts to out-bloody its predecessors backfire because the brutality is too cartoonish to take seriously. ... The more blood the series sheds, the less weight the violence seems to carry. ... None of the female characters are given much depth in the first five installments. But their struggles are still preferable to the umpteenth iteration of "Blokes Behaving Badly."

Sweet, progressive and breathtakingly filthy, the latest collaboration between comedians Nick Kroll and John Mulaney recalls the emotionally grounded squirminess of the boys of Freaks and Geeks and the sex-positive yet debasement-obsessed endocrinological chaos of, well, nothing I've ever seen.