Matt Webb Mitovich

Peacemaker, if you can stomach the title character’s lunkheaded views (and temporarily forgive if not forget his actions in The Suicide Squad), is a lot of James Gunn fun.

Once the premise for the series is in place, things get very fun, as Loki channels his mischievous brilliance into splendid detective work and he and Mobius engage in some timey-wimey theory testing, all building to a tantalizing, two-pronged reveal — one capping each hour — that opens up all kinds of possibilities for the rest of the six-episode season.

The physical confidence exhibited by Sam in that set piece, followed by the fun banter between him and a government handler, quickly cements Mackie’s upgrade from sidekick to lead hero. ... If Disney+’s second Marvel series stays on track, it will be as well-received as WandaVision, even if it is a more traditional Avengers offshoot.

Superman & Lois works. And oftentimes it is quite wonderful.

While Episode 1 overexerts itself juggling multiple storylines (there’s a B-story involving a young tailie that simply vanishes for long stretches), the episodes that follow are more tightly wound as the murder case, which dominates half of the 10-episode season, takes frightful turns.

DC’s Stargirl gets off to a rousing, high-flying start, then loses some momentum when subsequent episodes open with deep-diving, Titans-style, -centric flashbacks. But by Episode 4, the stage is set for what is both DC Universe’s and The CW’s lightest, brightest, family-friendliest live-action superhero show yet.

Locke & Key isn’t at all shy about revealing Key House’s incredible secrets; it just struggles to then do much with them, instead tending to hit pause on any acquired momentum to dive back into high school dating/movie club drama. As such, things don’t really get crackling until Episode 5 or so.

Left with mostly just his voice to act with, Pascal gives Mando some hints of snarkiness, if not humor; by and large, he comes off as a business-first ballbuster. (And truth be told, no one wants a quippy Mandalorian.) Weathers and Herzog fit comfortably into this world, in their brief intros, and it’d be great to see more of Nolte’s Kuiil.

There’s a lot more afoot in Season 2--and that’s a good thing.

Iron Fist Season 2 marks an improvement over its well-derided freshman run, but still lacks punch.

The cast is solid, the FX are top-shelf and the survival-related drama comes at a steady pace, with some episodes (the pilot included) delivering no less than white-knuckle sequences.

The Breakfast Club meets X-Men with a splash of Stranger Things thrown in, Marvel’s Runaways is the richest, best-realized Marvel drama of the new TV season.

The goings-on in Hawkins snowball during the second half of the season to deliver a rather breathless series of nailbiters.

All told, the “new-ish” Designated Survivor seems serviceable, if not (though understandably) in the same league as the venerable White House drama it aims to emulate.

Nothing particularly clever happens as the heroes endeavor to extricate themselves from their respective predicaments in the second half; you keep waiting for it, but aside from a bit of pickpocketing... nope.

Not able to achieve the (expensive) scope of, say, an all-out, multi-pronged Avengers melee, the group fights aren’t nearly as grand but enjoyable in their own right. But again, just as when the Avengers first assembled, much of the joy here is seeing disparate personalities get to know each other and reluctantly embrace the T-word--team.

All told, the new Battle feels more like a skirmish.

If The Great Indoors can maintain a balance of smart, and not tired, barbs lobbed between “the human version of dial-up” and the “stupid twentysomethings” with whom he must now work, there surely is a show here.

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow remains an odd bird. ... The better news is that once aboard the ship, the ensuing backstory on the Legends’ predicament tees up a rollicking, rat-a-tat recap of their off-season flitting through time.

Supergirl very much plays in the same brightly colored playground as The Flash, sprinkling in nerdy nods (“Miss Tessmacher!”) with vivid action sequences. Serving up an ongoing villainous threat, though, seems to remain its storytelling Kryptonite.

The Flash‘s return is a tremendous amount of timeline-tweaking fun, though the premiere closes with a gut-punch of a twist.

Arrow is back with--thankfully--what promises to be one of its more grounded, grittier seasons ever. ... Perhaps the best news is that the fifth and final round of flashbacks are, one could argue, as compelling as the current-day narrative.

Again, Daredevil, Jessica Jones and now Luke Cage take… their…… time in unspooling a 13-episode story, rarely serving up action scenes just because.

It’s almost shameless how quickly Mac plows through the “classics,” including using soot and packing tape to lift a fingerprint, and I’m still unsure of what principle he uses exactly to outwit a biometric scanner. But these quick fixes remain a good part of the fun. ... It deviates from the comparatively “lone wolf” nature of the original, though that’s not necessarily to its detriment; it simply makes it more familiar, CBS procedural-y.

An intense drug deal plays out with character-based nuance, more about the personalities in the room than the chance that guns will start blazing, while an episode set largely in the holding room of a jail finds drama in the assorted, transfixing plights of one-off characters.

For those in need of a serialized, compelling storyline, the fact that two episodes in we have no idea what Eliot will be up to on a weekly basis, and only a half of a hint of a whisper about Tyrell’s fate, has to make one wary.

We’ve got multi-animal assaults, a luxury jet that would make S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Zephyr jealous, new characters and a “Phase Two” twist that has upped the stakes, putting one hero in particular in a frightful situation.

The solid cast, compelling overall storyline and deft twists (Rosalee’s mother is full of surprises) add up to an engrossing, enlightening drama.