Beyond the draw of its main stars, “Platonic” is a middling comedy with plenty of the same gags you’ve seen before.

Patricia Arquette is not the only reason to watch “High Desert,” a new comic thriller premiering Wednesday on Apple TV+, but she’s the best reason, and all the reason you need.

It’s perhaps the best post-Henson Muppet show, even though — or exactly because — it features none of the usual headliners but strikes into fresh territory while maintaining the proper mix of satire, slapstick, silliness, subtlety and sentiment. The writing is good; the jokes land with Simone Biles consistency.

The prequel is the best “Bridgerton” yet.

A deft, oddly lovely, eight-episode semi-autobiographical comedy.

It takes things at a relatively leisurely pace. Generally faithful to the material and made without stylistic overreach, it’s enjoyable in an earnest, laid-back sort of way and offers a less familiar period of period drama.

You can’t accuse it of being slow. Conversation is just a short bridge to the next bout of action, which tends to be brutal in the way the kids, with their video games and comic books and Quentin Tarantino movies, like it these days. (Accordingly, “Citadel” may or may not be your idea of fun.) Events are predictably unpredictable.

Weisz’s nuanced performance as Elliot and Beverly is next-level brilliant. ... A twisty, unsettling narrative that’s at once darkly entertaining and dangerously unpredictable. “Dead Ringers” is must-see TV, even when it’s hard to watch.

There are impressive performances all around, but Gilpin’s is something beyond that; she’s utterly natural and present in every moment of a role that asks much of her. ... “Mrs. Davis” is complicated, but neatly organized. And the emotional arc is always intelligible, and very, very satisfying.

The bulk of the series consists of two people acting foolishly, every step forward followed by a giant leap back, again and again and again. And again. Yet if you hang on, some light finally does break in. (Even then, the show will toy with you.) And at long last, you might call it a comedy.

Nic is troubled, and therefore trouble, but Cooper has not tried to make her sympathetic; indeed, she becomes less sympathetic with time. One doesn’t root for her so much as root for her to get over herself.

Though “Transatlantic” is made with evident affection for its subject, and is not without entertainment value, it can also be clunky, corny and clichéd, scattered and perfunctory and at times unintentionally laughable.

“Unstable” is an adorable workplace comedy that’s odd enough to feel fresh and traditional enough to feel good.

The result is a narrative more ambling than compelling, compounded by the fact that the season, though it will settle some characters’ business and make various philosophical points, ends at a kind of dramatic midpoint. Nevertheless, “The Big Door Prize” is easy to like and even embrace.

Most [of the actors] are unable to rise above the stylistic miasma of the production. ... The series becomes sillier as it becomes more serious, wending its way to a bizarrely cheerful conclusion — given the dour preceding hours — that shares only a fire with its literary antecedent. None of the character development feels earned. The narrative threads are clumsily engineered; their tying up feels pat.

“Agent Elvis” succeeds more as a curiosity than a comedy, which is to say, I found it only occasionally funny — blood splatter doesn’t do it for me, I confess — but generally interesting, if only to see what scenes and references might turn up next. ... The series looks good, especially in its cartoonification of Elvis, all midcentury swooping lines and angles. (Robert Valley designed the character, and fashion designer John Varvatos received a screen credit for his wardrobe.) McConaughey’s performance, which is more McConaughey than Presley, is like honey on the ear.

“The Night Agent” is no worse than workmanlike but, also, workmanlike. It’s nothing special, nothing awful and exactly what many want from television.

[Kimmel] did a fine job setting the tone for the evening, which ran efficiently, and one might say exuberantly — there was much cheering, many hugs, more than a few tears and a chorus of “Happy Birthday” for “An Irish Goodbye” star James Martin — and with a minimum of the industrial self-congratulation that at its worst can make the Oscars broadcast an argument for the demise of the movies. ... It wasn’t a bad party, all told.

Whether or not you buy his theories about how men are, or women are, or what makes a good relationship, or what ails the country, or even accept the premises from which he draws his conclusions, and whether or not this was his finest hour (and eight minutes) of television, Rock remains worth listening to, because there’s nothing casual about what he does, and most important, he knows how to craft and sell a joke. You may laugh even as you’re offended.

As a TV series, it’s perfectly fine, in a paradoxically low-wattage, high-intensity way, though it does go on a little long and requires some willful suspension of disbelief.

A revival of a 13-year-old series, it feels full of freshman possibilities, and one hopes it doesn’t end here.

Although the vicarious tourism is part of the appeal — the show looks good and gives an excellent sense of its diverse settings, from Lapland to Lisbon to the Utah desert — it’s best when Levy is most visibly nervous (which is also when he’s at his funniest) or emotionally moved or connecting with locals.

The series still can’t decide whether it’s a comedy or drama. ... The necessary tension and conflict to drive their stories home is muted by a weak narrative. Momentum is an issue.

Likable.

MASH is a smash! [18 Sep 1972, p.61]

A perfectly pleasant, somewhat nonsensical, attractively peopled supernatural sitcom.

But even Noah struggled Sunday to pump life into a flat show. His dialogue between awards and performances felt wooden and rehearsed. ... The Grammys played it too safe after three years of uncertainty, causing the show itself to be the night’s biggest loser.

A work of pure pleasure. ... “Poker Face,” for all its cleverness and modern attitudes, is as straightforward as can be, made simply, and expertly, to be enjoyed — comfort food, not “elevated,” but delicious.