Steve Greene

With Naomi Osaka lighting the flame on the beautifully designed Olympic cauldron, there was a sense of reverence that at least partly counteracted all the questionable parts of the preamble.

“Through Our Eyes” works best as a stepping stone to understanding how anyone watching, not just children, can be a part of breaking these cycles.

There’s an electricity in the music itself, paired with Rubin and McCartney’s parallel reactions to discoveries buried deep in these song mixes, that the show almost doesn’t need that added visual momentum. But Heinzerling has a deft touch for when and where to augment the proceedings with an extra light show or to turn McCartney himself into a dolly track pivot point.

“This Way Up” still finds enough of life’s tiny absurdities to make for the perfect tether. Aine may not always have the right words for every occasion, but somehow “This Way Up” always does.

“Wellington Paranormal” is plenty strong enough that it doesn’t really need any “What We Do in the Shadows” callbacks. But it works both on its own and as an entry in a slowly interwoven web.

For those concerned that any departures and rearranging mean that the show has lost its freewheeling spirit, fear not. ... After setting the table in that season premiere, the second episode has all the hallmarks of the wild “Good Fight” imagination and self-deprecation that it’s long had in its foundation. Those renewed strengths are delivered with an even greater sense of confidence, in writing and performance and presentation.

There’s a careful balance that keeps the show from veering too far into closed-off academic treatises or uncritical hagiographic superfandom.

The show knows how to upend its own expectations, but it’s just as satisfying to see it harness some of the manic sitcom energy it thrives on without having to be a rehashing of some unrelated property.

The deeper that “Evil” gets into its mythology, the more it feels like a magician offering an inside look at how they do their tricks. For those who enjoy “Evil” for its web of sigils and exorcisms, Season 2 still has plenty to offer.

While the show does find some drama in that disconnect, “Us” is largely like the Petersen family itself: following a well-worn trail with one man resisting the pull to spend time on a more fulfilling path.

The more serious dramatic hairpin turns of Part 2 ring a little false. “Lupin” isn’t a show with enough commitment to make Assane’s exploits work on a level beyond mischief. When things veer toward potential legitimate bloodshed, the show feels out of its depth. It’s a shame, because “Lupin” works at its most whimsical.

It’s one of the great achievements of this new HBO Max comedy that this dance of uncertain feelings and independent lives is so well woven into the genuinely funny DNA of the rest of the series that it all feels blissfully natural.

As the show progresses and the logistics of her journey come into sharper relief, it’s natural to wonder if all of this is worth it. It’s never an easy “yes,” but when the obfuscation starts to melt away and the show isn’t bent on delivering the extremes of human behavior, the punishing ride leads to a destination with some unexpected rewards.

The more “We Are Lady Parts” focuses on the original spirit that courses through this group, the more the show around them sings.

There’s a version of this show that uses the fickleness of this game to say something about how teens treat each other and what’s expected from them by their elders. But all the inconsistencies and jagged pacing and disjointed plot threads are more an indication of a show spreading itself too thin for any of it matter.

“Trying” isn’t afraid to use a few choice coincidences now and again, but once things get past the small contrivances of the premiere, the show makes the most of the opportunities to dig into those personal hurdles facing the estranged Freddy (Oliver Chris) and Erica (Ophelia Lovibond), Nikki’s sister Karen (Sian Brooke), and any of the show’s would-be grandparents.

There’s a slight widening of the show’s scope, even with 10 fewer shorts to consider and a bit of the show’s earlier DNA still intact.

The success of “Shadow and Bone” Season 1 is that it works so effectively as the first installment of a potential trilogy. By the end, as the show is addressing ideas of hypermilitarization, class stratification, and the fraught nature of prophecy, it’s apparent that there’s more going on inside this season than is readily available on the surface. Here’s hoping there’s a chance for even more to shine through.

The most recent film version of “Romeo & Juliet,” airing this week as part of PBS’ long-running “Great Performances” series, gains something profound in separating this cultural touchstone into its component parts. ... “Romeo & Juliet” is both a presentation and a kind of secret, one that’s all the more entrancing by what it chooses to leave hidden.

Holthouse is an engaging storyteller and the series’ many animated recreation sequences effectively transport you into his investigative headspace. But when so much of his pursuit is one-sided phone calls and pixellated conversations, there’s only so much that “Sasquatch” can do before the drama seems manufactured.

“Everything’s Gonna Be Okay” is a perfect balancing act. There’s comfort without feeling too glib. There’s introspection without becoming too self-serious. There’s true affection without losing the tension that comes with being that close to someone.

One of the local reporters who’s been on the Gardner case beat since the beginning says that it’s been “30 years that these masterpieces have been missing. It needs a break.” “This is a Robbery” does a decent job at laying out what’s happened over those three decades — it also does a lot to prove that statement right.

The added time and the measured work from the show’s core cast help to show the full psychological toll it takes to both evade justice and to attempt to see it delivered.

There’s the sleekness and attention to detail of “Abstract: The Art of Design” without the need or pull to burnish the subject’s credentials. It has the biographical specificity and care of “Song Exploder” while taking advantage of the fact that it’s capturing ideas that are already visual.

So while there’s plenty of shifting around in “Back” Season 2, the humor comes from the same place: melancholy resignation to the fact that something will always be (fittingly, in the words of the new network’s slogan) slightly off.

As inventive as “Solar Opposites” is in spurts, Season 2 shows how much the main four characters are relatively indistinguishable from each other. ... The main exception is Jesse (Mary Mack), who emerges as the main Season 2 bright spot.

The further the season goes on, the more it sheds its procedural strengths and leans toward a more overarching story that gobbles up some of the potential to get to know its main characters better. ... Still, the pieces put in place over the course of these eight episodes provide a sturdy foundation for more exploring.

Each of the opening three episodes conclude with their own little grace notes, neat bows on a new development that, again, in a multitude of other contexts would come across as treacly. By fully embracing the strengths of the show and its franchise predecessors, “Mighty Ducks: Game Changers” has already earned those moments with breakaway speed.