The true central storylines of the season are the same as those of the series as a whole: Jessica’s journey toward (and attempts to define) heroism, and her relationship with her sister. This season does the best job yet of making clear that Jessica’s willingness to see and acknowledge the gray areas in herself and in others is actually one of her greatest strengths.

“Euphoria” wants to be honest and cool AF with character arcs built around its taboos, but while it has plenty of inspired visuals, those values don't make for durable storytelling once you get to know the show at its core.

Scenes go on FOREVER, to the point that they either become mesmerizing or stultifying. I fell more on the former side but wouldn’t question anyone who considers this the dullest thing streaming this year. ... All of this means that “Too Old to Die Young” is unlike anything else you’ll see on TV this year. Television is still largely a writer’s medium, and so it’s fascinating to see something that is so clearly and distinctly the product of a director’s unique vision. [Prime Video only screened episodes 4 and 5]

The dialogue is crisp but never sounds forced or clichéd. These are fast-talkers and fast-movers who often speak and act before they think, and it takes someone who has a history of managing large casts across multiple storylines to really bring a show like this one together. It helps to have an ensemble who all seems to be on the same page as well, and there’s not a weak link in this one.

This season of “Pose” is more assured, just as engaging, and certainly angrier than the first.

While it’s possible in these early episodes to see where Kelley and Moriarty had to pick the stitches sewn at the end of season one to accommodate this unlikely second season, there are enough remarkable distractions—of acting, of direction, of costuming, of music—to make it easy to brush past them and get to the good stuff. It helps when Meryl Streep’s involved. Streep, who joins the cast as Celeste’s (Nicole Kidman) mother-in-law, makes for a seamless addition.

“Smithereens”—is excellent not because of a clever twist but because of one of the best performances in the history of the show. And while the other two episodes have some good ideas, they don’t come together like the best of “Black Mirror.”

This is fantastic television, reminiscent of classic noirs and the way the Coen brothers played with the genre in works like “Blood Simple” and “Fargo.”

Each episode has its own most-valuable players either in front of or behind the camera, but the entire series is elevated by the two sets of actors who embody the Central Park Five. ... Taken as a whole, there’s a lot to recommend “When They See Us.” It does as much as it can to recast the gaze on Black and brown people, eliciting empathy and the desire for justice. It demonizes the right people and demands your fury over the events presented.

When Gaiman and Mackinnon return to those actors [Sheen and Tennant], the series becomes the compelling story of an unlikely friendship, a sort of undefined rom-com between two immortals with the end of the world as a quirky backdrop. That’s the “Good Omens” worth watching. The rest of it’s not bad—not world-ending, but not exactly heavenly, either.

The best elements of “Swamp Thing” feel deeply inspired by John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” and there are even a few flashes of icky body horror that brought the master of that, David Cronenberg, to mind. In between those visual flourishes is a show that would fit in fine on The CW, complete with flat dialogue and dull characters.

The four episodes don’t crackle with the wit that was in “Dreamland” or the playfulness of “Danger Island” or “Vice.” The writing just doesn’t feel as sharp as it once did, although I’ve only seen a small percentage of the season, and even that sampling had some laughs, if not the standard batting average of the overall series.

Good men die. Bad men prosper. That’s life. What feels miraculous about "Deadwood: The Movie" is how much it captures the comfortable humanity in between those two extremes. It feels like the product of a creator who fully understands that this is his last creation, but even he refuses to end on an easy note. There can be closure without sentimentality.

When Zellweger’s not on screen, “What/If” is a mostly empty, broad strokes neo-noir soap, frothy and forgettable. When she appears, it’s still all of those things—but dear lord, please pass the popcorn.

For a series that gradually loses its sharpness in its commentary on power and masculinity in wartime, Abbott’s performance constantly reminds you of what's so great about Heller’s book, but also what is timeless in making a dark comedy about war.

It’s clever, compelling, and endlessly thoughtful. That’s true of the series as a whole. Too often you watch a television show and wonder what could have been excised; here, not a beat is spared. Yet when it reaches its bittersweet, indelible conclusion, the ache isn’t one of wishing “Fleabag” could go on forever. It’s a simple, sweet moment of loss.

Brilliantly structured and anchored by great performances from Jared Harris, Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard, and more, “Chernobyl” is relentlessly bleak, but it has a remarkable cumulative power.

Applegate and Cardellini are never really bad in anything, and they’re terrific here on their own. But when they’re together, when they provide the messy, funny, undeniably warm rapport that defines this unusual friendship, “Dead to Me” (please forgive the phrase) comes to life. It makes the show’s occasional missteps—a twist too many, the odd joke too knowing, and a finale that feels like it belongs to a different series, to name a few—well worth enduring.

Fuqua doesn’t seem particularly interested in tying events together--and using archival interviews exclusively makes that almost impossible--and so the result is a project that has a bit of the “then this happened, then this happened, then this happened...” structure that often makes bio-docs feel flat. The reason “What’s My Name” transcends that flatness is the vividness of Ali’s own voice and undeniable charisma.

It’s not subtle, but it is smart. It’s openly emotional, but rarely manipulative. It, too, wears its heart on its sleeve, a quality that enables it to get the best of its occasional heavy-handed dialogue, needlessly twisty plotting, and a tendency to overcrowd and repeat itself.

The pacing is off here in every single episode. Sasha isn’t an interesting character and poor Uma Thurman seems like she signed up for a much more interesting show about grief.

Excellent and thoughtful ... “Ramy” is a comedy, and it’s a good one, but its clear priority is to have the jokes emerge from the characters being so carefully drawn, and from the worldview so frankly explored.

Its inspired however slight storytelling makes for another great display of Glover’s many talents as an entertainer.

Nothing is less terrifying than over-familiarity, and that’s only one of the many problems with Netflix’s Black Summer (premiering on April 11), a bleak, dull affair that mistakes camera movement for narrative energy and has about as much life as the walking dead.

The two that are the most interesting are the first to air--“The Match Made in Heaven” and “The Montreal Screwjob.” ... The other four episodes range from good to great.

When this limited series focuses on that relationship, it’s gripping, not least because Rockwell and Williams are remarkable performers doing unsurprisingly great work (Williams in particular is exemplary). And the series does, for the most part, keep its focus there. ... The problem is, Fosse/Verdon doesn’t need the razzle-dazzle, or at least, not this much.

It takes itself way too seriously, the dialogue is deadly flat, and the characters just aren’t interesting.

The season-two premiere didn’t do a whole lot for me until I watched the better second episode and saw the first in a new light. It’s a show that is both ingeniously plotted and completely committed to its two leads.