The first episode was bad. The second episode was sort of mystifying. ... Space Force is largely unfunny, has no sense of perspective or tone, and, outside of a pleasant, somewhat adorable Odd Couple friendship between Carell and Malkovich’s characters, offers little to warrant a recommendation. Schwartz and St. Clair deliver good performances, too, so there’s that? I guess?

Barkskins’ first season doesn’t really capture the environmentalist bent of Proulx’s book. Even so, it improves with every episode, in large part because its performances become richer the more they’re given time to develop, and breathe.

Its avalanche of ludicrous double-crosses, carnal entanglements and long-buried revelations is matched by performances that are uniformly overcooked, with no scene left wanting for furious outbursts, longing gazes, intense introspection or flashes of violence. ... There is no subtext, only blunt, simplistic text. ... But it’s rarely boring, which in the end seems to be the only real goal of this tawdry, titillating affair.

It is a total, breezy delight.

It careens through its twists and turns with a recklessness that is unnerving and exciting. But most thrilling of all is this emotionally volatile, hysterical, ace performance from Applegate, a woman flailing through life, shooting off sparks from the frayed wires at her wit’s end.

The new HBO series I Know This Much Is True is excellent. It’s also incredibly depressing. Relentlessly, viscerally depressing.

Trial by Media is consistently efficient, eloquent and free of formal gimmickry. Nonetheless, it stumbles slightly—in terms of its overarching goal—with its installment on Amadou Diallo, the unarmed African immigrant who in February 1999 was shot 41 times by four NYPD officers, if only because there’s a tenuous link between the media’s coverage of that incident and the not-guilty verdicts that were eventually handed down to the indicted. More coherent is the series’ critique of letting cameras into the courtroom.

Betty succeeds by expressing the unregulated joy of skateboarding—especially its grounding in the streets and outside of societal prescriptions of success and respectability. In fact, it’s a relief to watch a show about young women that does not demand their superiority or achievement in any conventional sense, but instead shows what might happen if you leave them be.

Hollywood flops as often as it soars, but never rests in its grandiosity and ambition. The result is something escapist and frothy at a time when a retreat to a Hollywood happy ending is as alluring a fantasy as they come.

It’s all directed in a zippy, witty, chaotically invigorating style that captures the sociopolitical zeal of the time, centering the stakes in a way that is profound. ... The only issue is one of balance. [Schlafly's] presence looms threateningly large in Mrs. America is the point, but it also knocks things off-kilter. Grouping her opponents together like this prevents some needed depth, while also suggesting an inequity of impact. ... Combining the two into a series is less amazing, but clever enough to still work.

Helmed by a group of directors, The Innocence Files isn’t a consistent formal affair. ... It’s a series with its heart in the right place, and arguments that are worth hearing—and heeding—in the interest of creating a more just system for all.

Each [episode] manages a careful balance between vividly recounting lurid details, instilling the appropriate gravitas real-world tragedies demand, and casting a skeptical (and yet at times empathetic) eye toward the magical thinking that construes coincidences into a “curse.”

The Scheme lays out its saga via prolonged interviews with Dawkins, which inevitably slants the material in his favor. Since Dawkins often undersells his somewhat shadier practices, that bias is occasionally frustrating, leaving the documentary feeling less than wholly reliable—an issue compounded by unnecessary and chintzy dramatic recreations starring Dawkins himself. Nonetheless, neither shortcoming is enough to interfere with the film’s lucid recount of the ensuing ordeal.

Save for a few minor missteps concerning Wyatt’s foolishness and Ruth’s less-than-wholly-believable anger over her own dad’s assassination, Ozark once again handles its business with merciless efficiency.

Dark Side of the Ring once again balances its wealth of great talking-head interviews and archival footage with cornier elements such as fuzzy dramatic recreations and soundbite-y transitions to commercial. Furthermore, it occasionally detours away from more interesting avenues of exploration—such as Jericho’s unelaborated-upon comment that Benoit’s scandalous crime almost destroyed wrestling—in favor of sensationalistic angles, which makes it at once immensely watchable and frustratingly shallow.

It’s neither scientifically accurate nor remotely believable, but it is an entertainingly gonzo saga of suspense and intrigue—regardless of what Freud might say about viewers’ desire for such trashy stuff.

A properly addicting series. ... It’s one iconic actress acting against type, and another shading what she does best. For all the imperfections and missteps in adapting the source material, these lead performances are what light the match. It’s the fire you tune in to see burn.

The Plot Against America is incredible, if harrowing. ... If you didn’t know what’s to come, you might be confused why what appears to be a normal family drama is being elevated as so profound. But the set dressing is necessary. Consider it the gasoline in the Molotov cocktail that episode two throws, burning all the way through the finale, which alters Roth’s own ending in a provocative—though still in the author’s spirit—way.

Season three is a blessedly streamlined one. Provided you can grasp the general gist of who’s alive, who’s a host, and who knows what is “real.” ... But this new, simpler Westworld is also no fun. ... All this said, there’s an unmistakable confidence this go-round, a steady hand at the helm that appeared all-but severed as season two neared its end.

Dirty Money’s tales are swift and incisive; restricted to an hour, they slice away unnecessary narrative and argumentative fat to get straight to the fetid heart of the matter. That also means melodramatic manipulation is in short supply.

Dave is very funny. That’s not the most astute critical assessment, I know. But it’s what you probably most want to know. It’s also deeper than it has any business being, even if it never convincingly answers the question of whether this is a story that needed to be told in the first place.

After humoring Stewart’s account, as well as synopsizing the Zodiac’s reign of terror, The Most Dangerous Animal of All surprisingly swerves in its final installment, pointing its inquisitive gaze squarely at Stewart himself. ... The sight of the once-confident and composed Stewart trying to defend his mistakes, and charade, is enlivening. Moreover, it turns the entire affair into a critique of both itself and, by extension, the true-crime genre, where sensational claims and pretzel-logic explanations are routinely, and easily, presented as trustworthy.

If Knappenberger’s series sometimes lingers too long on certain narrative elements, the motivation for such minor missteps is pure: to convey the full extent of Gabriel’s agony and Pearl and Isauro’s villainy. ... It succeeds at inciting outrage at the wide-scale callousness that caused this nightmare to occur. ... It’s a sprawling, heartbreaking portrait of true evil.

There are upwards of 20 main characters in Narcos: Mexico, and it’s a credit to showrunner Eric Newman—and their team of capable screenwriters and directors—that they all turn out to be distinctive and compelling.

At its best, Love Is Blind is just as bizarre and addictive as its producers clearly intended it to be—but after a while, that delightful strangeness gives way to something more conventional.

Guided by countless video and audio recordings that Schneider made during this period—capturing conversations he had on the phone, and in person, with just about everyone in his orbit—The Pharmacist details the man’s mission with amazing immediacy.

Mythic Quest often plays like a mild lark uninterested in pushing itself into truly gonzo territory. Once its protagonists’ quirks and hang-ups have been firmly established, the series is able to play off of those attributes to wittier ends. Yet even so, none of its central figures are distinctive enough to stand out from any number of like-minded comedy efforts.

This final batch of episodes delivers on all of the surreal contradictions that have made BoJack Horseman great. Despite some rushed pacing, each character’s ending feels earned—and more importantly, the same can be said for the relationships they each choose to have with BoJack going forward.