Steve Greene

There’s a feeling throughout a still-entertaining “The Captain” that there’s even more in those worlds left to discover.

Not only is “Point and Shoot” an impeccable ballet of conflicting aims and means, it sets an effective expectation for the remaining five episodes to come: Don’t expect this to feel good.

It finds that ultra-satisfying sweet spot between the radical and the familiar, a middle ground where discovery can happen over the course of an entire series and not just its opening chapter.

This is not a tale of brute force determination. There’s a delicacy and a slipperiness here that feels organic to the story of a person trying to assert some control in an otherwise volatile life. ... Against a wave of similar shows that luxuriate in the lies, each incremental step away from the truth in “Chloe” carries a real, sobering weight with it.

Trying to wedge the elevated, stagey banter of a network single-cam into a show that borrows heavily from a shiny Apple TV+ in-house aesthetic only invites more dissonance than it’s worth. The result is a show as stuck between worlds as Molly is.

Without losing the show’s main thread, “Evil” can dip into spy thriller, disaster story, headline response, or, yes, horror tale with an ease that gets more impressive with each passing episode.

“Players” uses the form to pick apart what drives each of these people. There’s no need to choose between someone telling a good story and someone living that story in real time when the show finds illuminating ways to capitalize on both.

If “Irma Vep” ’96 is a quintessential Ship of Theseus, swapping and refitting planks until it’s impossible to say where performer ends and performance begins, Vikander, through Mira, is an actress who can conjure a sea-ready vessel at will for whatever each new situation demands. She’s also a main vector for this “Irma Vep” and its more mischievous side.

Plenty of Season 3 moments arise from certain characters’ stubbornness to relinquish the past and embrace a new set of possibilities with fresh people at the lead. “For All Mankind” still manages to be a compelling, propulsive show, even if it often falls prey to that same idea.

Whenever Boyle manages to tamp down the faux-provocative visual put-ons and let this group work as a group, that’s when “Pistol” gets closest to capturing the energy it’s striving for. ... For most of the rest of the show, “Pistol” tries too hard to make the case for a band that never really needed any help to make an impression.

“The Essex Serpent” tells a story where faith rarely manifests in ways other than preachers shouting about sin and love is rarely felt without being laid bare in plain terms. Regardless of what it is that Cora is destined to find out in the water, it’s hard not to want a little more from this show than what’s floating on the surface.

There’s a more pragmatic approach here that still finds room to live in the psychological margins while trying to make sense of a senseless death. There’s a bit of messiness on the way to its ultimate conclusions, but given the nature of why this show exists in the first place, tidiness wouldn’t suit “Candy” anyway.

What she discovers is the roots of another eight episodes that take the series’ premise and further makes good on its infinite promise. It’s a new path that transfers attention from a handful of characters from the first season in favor of zeroing in even more on the greater Winograd-Diaz tapestry, including Becca and Alma’s mother Camila (Constance Marie).

“The Baby” really seems to be having fun the more it leans into its Brothers Grimm-adjacent DNA. Rather than a Rumplestiltskin type sent to hound Natasha until she breaks, it’s a worldless little tyke in a 15-pound package.

Hector becomes another stellar example of how this cast allows just enough suppressed emotion to simmer at the surface. ... Even if the show didn’t use the device of police logs to explain when each vignette of Jenkins’ misdeeds occurred, Bernthal is also doing sharp work to help situate each stop along the timeline. Jenkins’ arc isn’t simply an evolution from clean-shaven academy grad to chin-bearded petty tyrant. There’s a full-bodied shift, however gradual.

With 50 episodes in its memory and 13 more to go, this is a meticulous closing stretch of the journey, astonishingly short on false moves so far.

It’s not a show destined for obscurity like some of the characters it prizes most, but there’s a still a little room left to hone its strengths.

There’s a healthy dose of skepticism in “Bad Vegan” that helps it avoid framing this saga as a love story gone wrong, and maybe its most insightful decision is to emphasize how numbing that ratcheting strain becomes on Sarma herself.

That idea of having a clear glimpse at some portions of the past and only being able to grasp at others seems fundamental to the idea of a shared family history. It makes “Pachinko” a lovingly crafted paradox, one worth giving yourself over to.

It’s only when the show makes its grand breakthrough in the final third that “The Tourist” gets a much needed influx of energy. Still, it’s another example of something in this show that feels like it should work in the abstract, but in practice simply feels like slapping on an extra layer without properly seeding that spirit throughout.

“Shining Vale” is a murder mystery without much mystery, a family comedy with barely either, and a horror story only so far as it cribs from genre classics with a few extra hyperactive cuts.

The good news is that, either way, this is a tale that even in its most straightforward telling still has plenty to latch on to.

Whether you invest in the allegory, character arcs, or both, “Severance” hits its marks.

There are faint glimmers of a leaner, more confident show that peek through. ... For a show with nearly a 12-hour running time, though, there aren’t nearly enough to break a familiar story’s repetitive cycle.

Even with this refresh, all the familiar “Billions” trappings are still here. ... Having a deep bench of actors who understand the show’s cadences and interests, in whatever season the show happens to be in, always helps.

It’s not that the show would be better if it withheld more, but most of the steps building the world of “Archive 81” outward are done in a way that feels more obligatory than efficient.

Now aware of its influence and with the added responsibility that comes with it, “Cheer” delivers a fascinating command performance, with all the attention and empathy that the stories at its center demand.

Now drawing on two seasons’ worth of breakthroughs and setbacks, this is a show that understands the relative importance of each new trial, whether it’s treating a moody sow or navigating the pitfalls of young love.