Jen Chaney

Thankfully, season four finally regains some momentum and forward motion. Based on the eight out of ten total episodes made available to critics, this is the best The Handmaid’s Tale has been since its first season.

As has been the case on other Schur-produced shows, Rutherford Falls skillfully braids discussions of serious sociocultural issues with character-based comedy in ways that seem neither forced nor overly didactic.

Yes, the premise of Big Shot is familiar, but it’s more satisfying and dramatically fulfilling than you might expect.

In its final episodes, Younger remains as fizzy as the Champagne that gets poured at all those rooftop parties that Liza & Co. get to attend. The show’s connection to the real world may be extra-tenuous, but the truth is, most of us never came to Younger for reality. We came, season after season, to escape. Despite some uneven spots, it’s still a pleasure to let it sweep us away again for one last time.

One of Mare of Easttowns’s greatest assets is its thorough attention to detail, but occasionally that also works to its detriment. The show places importance on so many story lines and sidebars that some inevitably get shoved to the side without being satisfyingly resolved. ... But the series is so immersive and well-done in other ways that its flaws don’t detract from the experience.

Made for Love is decently made and certainly watchable, but as with the in medias res opening, nonlinear storytelling, and well-covered themes about tech that goes too far, it’s tough to shake the sense that we have seen this show before.

Falcon and the Winter Soldier is definitely more traditional Marvel fare, but it kicks into gear so quickly that this feels like less of a letdown than it might have been. ... Whether The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has something meaningful to say from a political standpoint remains to be seen. What is clear, one episode in, is that Skogland directs with skill and polish and that Mackie and Stan are instantly comfortable sliding back into these roles they already know so well.

The most enriching and entertaining parts of Waffles + Mochi are these interactions with chefs, as well as the trips to places like Peru’s Valle Sagrado, where the heroes watch a man dubbed the Potato Whisperer harvest potatoes with all kinds of colors inside. If there’s a second season of Waffles + Mochi, let’s hope that Thormahlen and Konner let segments like those breathe a little longer.

Last Chance U: Basketball would have been an excellent sports docuseries under any circumstances, but what makes it extraordinary is the fact that it was filmed during the 2019–2020 season, which means that certain real-life events collide with the Huskies’ story. ... The coronavirus pandemic eventually affects the team as well, leading to one of the more visceral and moving attempts on television so far to capture the loss and uncertainty that immediately set in as the epidemic began.

One of the most fascinating potential elements in this Real World redux will be watching how the same people unpack these issues now after three decades of experience and insight. There is also something poignant about watching these six people, several of whom have remained in touch, reconnect in person again, especially at a time when in-person reunions are impossible.

A lot of the Golden Globes was indeed messy this year, but not necessarily the good kind of messy. ... The electricity usually generated between the pair [Fey and Poehler] and their audience when everyone’s in the same ballroom was notably absent, but nothing about their performance was cringey or embarrassing, which is the bar we have now set for entirely or semi-virtual award shows.

The breadth of what the series tackles makes it much more compelling and thought-provoking than it would have been as a strict rehash of the Farrow-Allen split. On that more basic level, the doc does a solid job of recontextualizing our understanding of the details surrounding that breakup, as well as Dylan’s relationship with Allen.

As charming as Johnson is, the portions of the show that focus on him as a grown-up are the weakest part of what is an otherwise sweet and appealing family comedy.

The Great North is often clever, performed by actors with distinctive voices that give the characters fully formed personalities, and about people trying to be good to each other while living in an out-of-the-ordinary place.

For a show that is trying to be ambitious, it falls prey to far too many clichés, and an unrealistic glorification of Clarice.

It’s something parents will enjoy sharing with their kids while also being reminded of their own more innocent times, spent in front of living-room televisions staring at animated Snoopys from their past. It’s a new Peanuts security blanket, wrapped in a comforting and familiar Peanuts security blanket. It’s a reminder that happiness was, and still is, a warm puppy.

A fascinating four-part HBO docuseries, premiering Sunday, January 31, that tells her story with honesty, humor, and admirable sensitivity.

The documentary’s beats may be familiar to those who have followed his career closely. Nonetheless, it manages to offer some compelling insight within its tight framework.

If Wanda and Vision can blend into each new community and keep their unusual gifts hidden, they’ll be safe and okay at the end of every half-hour. But as ominous signs begin to creep into their blissful, lawn-mown bubble, WandaVision is already signaling — with grand ambition, infectious energy, and moments of intriguing suspense — that these time-traveling characters can only play house for so long.

Mr. Mayor lacks some edge. It’s less in the realm of Veep and more a hybrid of 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation. Which is not necessarily a bad thing! But you can feel Fey, Carlock, and the rest of the creative team still calibrating what sort of tone they want to strike. All that said, there are certainly some laughs in these first installments, and a lot of them come from Moynihan’s deadpan delivery.

It’s mostly an educational lark that enables comedians to riff on obscenities and allows Nicolas Cage — I know, I know, I buried the lede — to act as an overly serious, Masterpiece-style host of the proceedings who tears into his dialogue like a bread-maker attacking a rare steak. But there is also some genuinely interesting information in this light sextet of episodes.

As rendered in this iteration of King’s epic, that mix of realism and fantasy results in a disjointed, tonally inconsistent work that manages to both over-condense aspects of the original saga and overstay its welcome.

Cranston is, unsurprisingly, superb here, as is the rest of the exceptional cast. Unfortunately, much of the material they are working with in Your Honor — developed by Peter Moffat, the British playwright and screenwriter who wrote Criminal Justice, the series that inspired The Night Of — contains so many familiar crime TV elements that it bends toward the tropey. ... The series is not without its compelling moments, though, particularly in the first episode, when Adam gets himself into the trouble that sets up everything that comes next.

This series is still as funny and profane as it’s ever been. ... Big Mouth also, obviously, may be “too much.” But four seasons in, it’s still figuring out new ways to make too much seem just right.

This single-camera, ten-episode Saved by the Bell, which skewers the original in all the right, incisive ways, is a smart, often hilarious reimagining of a show that is beloved more on ironic terms than sincere ones, a fact that the Peacock sitcom understands down to its Bayside-mocking bones.

A new Disney+ offering that arrives on the platform on the 42nd anniversary of that other Life Day extravaganza and is mediocre in the sort of unimaginative, promo-tainment ways that have become commonplace in the modern era.

Big Sky throws just enough storytelling curveballs to pique interest and entice viewers to come back for the next installment. But if the series doesn’t start to cohere after a couple more episodes, some may be inclined to move on and simply leave this mystery unsolved.

One of the reasons Moonbase 8 works as well as it does is that it’s deliberately not telling stories on a grand scale. Its episodes and its scope are streamlined and focused, and the things its characters confront are purposely not grand at all. It helps, too, that the team behind it shares the same deadpan comic sensibility.