Sometimes they come off like schoolboys looking for their next target to bully. Sometimes they’re genuinely interesting people with relatable anxieties and insecurities, and their conversation becomes less about jokes and barbs and deflection and more about just talking to one another.

“The Citadel” is formulaic and busy — splashy — yet still manages to be kind of dull.

The special is funny and genuine and even if it’s not especially original, I found myself choked up by the end.

Tonally the series is elegant if a bit clenched at first, which mirrors Camille and Issei’s personalities. ... But in the final few scenes, a sense of release and euphoria washes over everything.

The series is extraordinarily smart, it understands the value of comedy within a dramatic context and it moves at a hell of a clip. ... “The Diplomat” is the best in its class.

Hader directs all the episodes this season, which are suffused with plot. Probably too much plot. ... Surreal moments are ladled in without much explanation, but violence is the lingua franca and I’m never sure to what end.

In terms of reasonably entertaining intrigue that doesn’t involve guns being waved in everyone’s faces, “The Last Thing He Told Me” gets the job done. And there’s a good chance you’ll have your laundry folded by the end.

I respect “Beef” more than I enjoyed the experience of watching it, but it is wonderfully compelling.

The music is stronger this time out, maybe because there’s more variety to draw on for inspiration. ... It’s frothy and fizzy but Strong, in particular, is the grounding element. She brings a vulnerability that earns the season’s emotionally resonant epilogue.

Conspiracies abound. Paranoia is justified. But the show remains human-scaled. There’s no one big ticking clock hanging over their heads, so much as a time crunch here, a time crunch there. Everything is incremental, giving a richness to the storytelling.

“Succession” remains a show uninterested (or unable) to offer more than a smirking, surface-level critique of entrenched systems that allow the Roys of the world to barrel over anyone or anything unlucky enough to get in their way. The fourth season doesn’t deviate from that, and if you are a devotee of the show, that’s probably just as well. “Succession” is nothing if not consistent in terms of its level of quality as well as its flaws.

There’s a lot to admire about the show’s ambitions, even if they’re not fully realized. ... I like that “Extrapolations” is asking serious questions. It’s not a hectoring approach but one designed to be entertaining, its themes delivered in a gleaming package filled with boldface names.

As it is, the pacing meanders and the show’s signature tonal assuredness feels off-balance.

The series has a terrific snap to it, with an ear attuned to banter that touches on — and sometimes deflects — deeper issues. The combination works because it’s not glib, but a coping mechanism for both. ... The real revelation here is Washington, who is looser than ever.

Not all of it works. In fact, a lot of it doesn’t. Maybe the misses are inevitable when the goal is an explosion of concepts and barrage of jokes; some won’t land. But the ones that do stick with you.

Elegantly grizzled as the show may be, I actually appreciate the rare moments of earnestness.

The series falls into a number of expected traps. It’s the “same old tired rock and roll tale,” as Billy puts it, and he’s not wrong. But the episodes have a cumulative power, even if the storytelling often feels like it’s cutting corners rather than digging in.

It’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in months, and not just on Netflix.

The show at its best generates such a happy-go-lucky absurdity amid the ego-smashing reality of anyone struggling to find a foothold in showbiz. But it’s actually Ron’s story — of an everyman who doesn’t want to be famous, he just wants modest success in business — that feels most potent to me.

The show can’t seem to land on an overall tone or sensibility. Ventimiglia is likable, that’s not the issue. But as written, the character is too bland and underdeveloped to really carry a show. Same goes for his romantic counterpart in Kim.

As a wild and wooly satire on army life, however, M*A*S*H will delight anyone who has spent even eight weeks in basic training let alone fought in a war. [18 Sep 1972, p.75]

A solid idea that would benefit from a narrower focus in the early going.

A cut above the best. ... You need a consistent and entertaining center to keep things grounded and Lyonne’s shrugging-charismatic performance is as deft as they come.

“The Last of Us” is certainly well-made and mostly absorbing, anchored by solid performances from Pascal and Ramsey. ... But the story told in “The Last of Us” — from the game’s writer Neil Druckmann, teaming up with “Chernobyl” creator Craig Mazin — isn’t especially curious or interested in lingering in this place long enough to suss out the details.

There’s a clockwork energy to heist stories that’s interrupted here. It lacks the right build-up, but I’m not even sure if watching the episodes in chronological order (a quick internet search will pull up that info) would fix the issue. The pacing’s just off.

They really were under siege. They really did fear for their safety. You get a window into Meghan’s can-do approach venturing into this new life: If you make the effort, there’s a good chance things will work out. But things were never going to work out here. ... But the docuseries is also vague about so much. What role did Garbus, the director, play in terms of the project’s content? What were the parameters she was working under?

A sharper editor might have encourage the trimming of previously reported information that ultimately isn’t relevant to what appears to be the broader goal: Assessing the system itself. The series doesn’t fully solve this dilemma, of servicing the intentions of its two primary subjects, while also telling a larger story about the intertwined interests of the monarchy and tabloid media, all of it shaped and informed by xenophobia and racism.

Nina Metz: I’d rather just stay with one story and see it play out. Usually, it’s whichever one Turner is in. ... But it takes real finesse to mine absurdist comedy from something as miserable and destabilizing as having your stuff repo’d, and yet the opening scene in the first episode is just a cascade of jokes. William Lee: While I think the season starts off slowly and left me wanting more, the show still excels at executing understated comedy bits.