Lucy Mangan

The first episode was unquestionably a slow burner. Sammy herself is as yet an uncharismatic central figure, and the liveliest characters so far have hardly even amounted to cameo performances. ... The undercurrents of unresolved rage and shame between mother and daughter tug at the attention. Not quite bonzer then, but no dag either.

It is a modern-day Job’s suffering examined in careful but ultimately unilluminating detail. The strength of all the performances – Ruffalo’s of course, but also Kathryn Hahn as his still-loving ex-wife, Rob Huebel as her new partner and Dominick’s friend, Melissa Leo as the twins’ downtrodden mother (Leo is only nine years older than her supposed offspring, but that is a column for another time), and Archie Panjabi as Thomas’s new psychiatrist – makes it worth watching.

While remaining properly, deeply funny throughout - Dave does feel like we are past the peak of manbaby comedy.

The Script is not one that shines, though it does dip in and out of multiple languages, and give a great sense of the deeper bond among the people who end up in the Eddy together, even as they struggle and clash on the surface. True jazz fans may find it the perfect riff on the basic gangster plot. The rest of us, perhaps, not so much.

It is a show that is smug and obtuse enough to believe la la land’s self-regarding idea that celluloid art directly shapes our lives. ... It’s a crushing disappointment nevertheless. Not ready for its closeup, Mr DeMille.

As is so often the case, the opening episode isn’t its best – there is an over-reliance on the traditional dramatic tropes of the childless couple (making awkward jokes about fontanelles to new mothers and so on), but it quickly finds its feet. ... The genuinely loving, intimate banter between Nikki and Jason in their quieter moments too is one of the series’ greatest strengths.

A lot happens, but as setpieces rather than as a unifying force or plot driver. ... But it’s got heart and charm and it is quite clearly and endearingly the result of one man’s sensibility and vision. If it keeps its focus on what we really want to invest in and doesn’t slide fully into whimsical nonsense, then there will be every reason to stay.

It’s a triumph in every way, from acting and direction to script, and if we see a better drama – certainly about adolescence, one which takes it seriously without treating it indulgently – this year, I’d be very surprised. It’s a beautiful, hugely beautiful thing.

Approached as a crime drama, Defending Jacob might seem a little slow and underbaked, but as an ensemble character piece it hits the mark.

Instead of simply marvelling at Sequoia and Theodolite’s bravery in building a six-storey poured-concrete and wickerwork habitational constructivation on a sand dune, it uses each individual home as a jumping off point for an examination of wider movements, issues and possibilities.

The question of what she has seen is the carrot that dangles before us, pulling us through the rest of an hour that without it would threaten to be very lacklustre indeed.

The opening episode gets off to a shaky start, credibility and credulity-wise, as we watch how the show that would soon dominate the schedules came together. ... Fortunately, once the nuts and bolts are dealt with and the focus shifts to the Ingrams and life among normal humans outside the TV studios, the drama becomes as addictive as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? proved.

Like the second series, it is still a high-quality, high-wire act, but it cannot quite match the verve and wit of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s original episodes. A further burden now – and one shouldered by any subsequent series after one based on a cat-and-mouse premise – is that the artifice is showing.

What saves it from simple tedious schmaltz (notwithstanding the clambering-on-tabletops-in-solidarity scene in the cafeteria as Hilde reads out – so fearlessly! So maturely! So driven-by-the-truthly! – the online comments from under her murder report) is Prince’s performance. She is simply astonishing. You wouldn’t believe her character in any other hands.

It reminded me of 90s Prime Suspect, which is not a bad thing, but nor is it especially revolutionary to keep doing that today.

Everyone involved, of course, might fare better if they had a decent script, proper lighting, well-choreographed fight scenes and sets that didn’t look as if they had been nailed together from whatever was left after Michael Keaton left the building in 1989. ... For now, though, pure and perfect trash is what we need – and Batwoman provides.

It is terrible. ... Nothing has been written, shown or scored in a way to elicit any degree of human emotion.

Feel Good should make you feel good. It’s not only an immaculately written and paced piece of work and a properly funny comedy, it is also has created a delicately and intricately constructed, deeply humane world where people make mistakes but are not damned, and have flaws that are not fatal, and – despite all the obstacles – connect across and despite their divides. It is good for almost everything that ails us.

Julian Fellowes has been typing again. It is the year flimpty plomp, the pasteenth century in days of yore. ... Smash cut to 26 years later. Afternoon tea has been invented, Sophia is dead, the titular London district of Belgravia has been built (by James, in partnership with Thomas Cubitt, dontcha know) and the script is even worse.

The 10-part series is technically a comedy, but it hits so many pressure points so hard in such rapid succession that if you do laugh it will be through some quite considerable anxiety and pain. I mean that as a compliment.

If you can let yourself watch as a child again, the hour can become charming once more, even for those old enough to remember when the future Marty was going back to (“It’s your kids, Mary!”) was still to come.

The musical interludes are the best bits but even these are a mixed bag. ... There’s also some woefully underbaked dialogue.

In summary it sounds soapy, but in reality it is ruthlessly unsensationalist and at times deeply moving.

The true pleasure of the thing lies in Lillis’s wonderful performance, which manages to convey the depths and numbness of loss beneath the layers of more ordinary teenage fury and frustration all lying beneath the traditional pose of sardonic disaffection. ... There are snippets of Daria in there, Freaks and Geeks’ Lindsay (Stanley would fit in nicely with them, too), Janis from Mean Girls and Angela Chase, linchpin of the much-lamented My So-Called Life. And you might catch the occasional whiff of Heathers, too.

Every episode – which run for between 35 and 55 minutes – feels too long. ... Instead of the original series’ bleakly measured contemplation of mankind’s capacity for cruelty and evil, the reboot falls into either preachiness or schmaltz.

It’s too cool and self-conscious for its own good, and seems to revel in any and all deaths on screen, regardless of whether the victims are “guilty” or not.

Love Is Blind is absurd, revolting, endearing, toxic and wholesome by turns – and addictive as hell throughout.

At the moment, Chris seems too good to be true, and a character put to work mostly in the service of enlightening the lead, everything else about Work in Progress suggests that this minor flaw will soon be remedied. Abby may say she feels like an eternally unfinished person, but this show is already fully fledged.