Despite the languid pacing, Sugar had us engaged for the entire first episode, mainly because Colin Farrell embodies the character of John Sugar so well.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is unashamedly mundane, weird, funny, and feminine — and that’s why it is such a success.

Despite the fact that there are some very funny and weirdly satisfying aspects of Fake Famous, it somehow seems incomplete. ... Instead of trying to find new people willing to go with the experiment, he essentially concentrated on Dominique leaning into the experience. Yes, the social experiment still worked, but we would have liked to have seen more examples of it working than just a single person.

Pivoting works because of its three leads, but they’re dealing with uneven stories that we hope will be worked out as its first season goes along.

There’s enough we liked about the first two episodes of The Franchise to recommend it, but we wonder how far the show’s accomplished producers can push the “crazy production of a high-budget film” theme without making things either absurd or annoying.

As nascent true crime sensations go, a fan of the genre could do worse than Jack Murphy and the chronicle of Murf the Surf.

Sheriff Country has already set up some good stories and rivalries in its first episode, and Baccarin strikes the right tone as a person who wants to keep her hometown safe.

Because Inside Job immediately establishes its characters, its brand of humor goes way beyond just seeing lizard people struggle with the Keurig machine in the break room. And that’s what will make the series last a few seasons.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is a perfectly entertaining entry in the now-60-year-old Trek franchise, punctuated by fun performances by Hunter and Giamatti. We just worry that the more generic-feeling Academy portion of the series will overwhelm the usually-reliable starship adventures.

While refusing to resolve the show’s existential drama in a simple, easy way. It’s messy, magnificent, and a fitting conclusion to the sensational story that started back in 2021.

Dream Productions continues to effectively expand the Inside Out universe, which seems to know no bounds, given the fact that a preteen’s brain is so darn complicated.

With Reedus doing his usual stellar job as the brooding but caring Daryl, TWD: Daryl Dixon is on pretty solid dramatic ground.

Finding Alice strikes the right balance between drama and comedy, sadness and laughter, with a fine performance by Keeley Hawes at its center.

This version of One Piece is off the wall without being over the top, a highly necessary distinction illustrating that it’s far more watchable than not.

Alex Rider is definitely an above average entry in TV’s spy genre; it takes its main character seriously and develops him enough that we can actually believe he’ll do a good job as an agent. That’s saying a lot.

If you’re a fan of The Bachelor franchise or Love Island, Love Is Blind, and Too Hot To Handle, just jump right in. Don’t even think about it, you know you’re gonna love this.

While there’s a lot of messiness in this new version of Queer As Folk, it also introduces an interesting new set of characters and examines how much things have changed and stayed the same for the LGBTQIA community.

The chemistry between Bernal and Luna is at the heart of La Máquina, and we hope that the show’s producers lean on that for the rest of the season.

While we still feel that there’s a bit of a lunkheaded feel to The Night Agent, Basso’s and Buchanan’s characters are established enough in the second season that the improved mission they’re on is something we’re looking forward to watching.

Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole isn’t reinventing the “troubled detective” or Nordic noir genres, but good performances by Santelmann and Kinnaman make the show very watchable.

A darkly enchanting look at the bleaker side of having superpowers.

While not hilarious, The Residence has funny moments. Paired with Uzo Aduba’s mesmerizing performance as Cordelia Cupp, the show is very watchable.

We’re on the fence. At times, High Desert comes off as an overflowing sack of chaotic scenes passing for a story, but at other times, when it’s focused on where it’s going, it can be fun to watch.

If you want to get a more complete picture of how Chppendales exploded in popularity and how Banerjee’s poor decisions led to his death, watch Curse Of The Chippendales or any of the other docuseries about the club’s history. Welcome To Chippendales is so over-fictionalized that it actually makes the story less compelling than the real thing.

This series of live talk shows demonstrates why Mulaney would’ve been and still remains a great candidate to anchor anything like Update.

With Kreese back in the center of the action, everyone working towards Sekai Taikai and an extended final season in 2024 and “final battle” in 2025 on the horizon, we can see Hurwitz, Schlossberg and Heald focusing and being able to bring Cobra Kai to the finish line with a funny, emotionally affecting story.

We’ll give Echo 3 the benefit of the doubt because it’s taking a more thoughtful and deliberate tack than most military shows. But boy, do things go pretty slowly to start.

The Acolyte‘s first four episodes are a brilliant addition to the larger Star Wars universe. By looking backwards to the waning days of the Jedi Order, Leslye Headland has pushed the franchise further into the future than ever before.

The Artful Dodger doesn’t try to replicate the vibe of Oliver Twist. It has its own vibe, one that moves quickly, is often funny, and is mostly entertaining to watch.

An intense and funny performance by Margo Martindale is the highlight of The Sticky, but the idea that this crazy heist story could go just about anywhere is what’s the most intriguing thing about it.

Muppets Haunted Mansion is trifling silliness. It inspires some smiles, if not out-loud laughter. Call it a slight amusement then. Please don’t take that as a deterrent — Disney’s recent Muppets fare has kind of lowered our expectations, and this is perfectly acceptable fodder for an evening of family togetherness.

Live to 100 leans away from woo-woo and self-promotion, and gives us a reasonably compelling investigation into longevity.

hat it brings to mind the most? The hyperbolic sleaze of TV “newsmagazine” Hard Copy. Get Gotti is slick and sensationalist and tiptoes right up to the edge of bad taste, occasionally dipping the tip of a toe in it. It’s also tonally conflicted.

While it’s not an investigation per se, we appreciate the strong journalistic approach Reckoning takes, using direct quotes and personal experience, wherever it can, to establish historic, scary patterns in Combs’ behavior. At the same time, director Alexandria Stapleton is an artful builder of tension, which makes Reckoning eminently watchable.

There’s little about A Teacher that should feel comfortable. FX on Hulu’s latest miniseries focuses on the relationship between a teacher and her underage high school student, and creator Hannah Fidell does everything possible to sell this romance. Yet it’s that grueling feeling of discomfort that makes this miniseries work.

The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power ups the ante in Season 2, but still takes its time to explore various sets of characters. It’s rare when a show gets five guaranteed seasons, and the show’s producers and writers are taking advantage of this expanded time to make the stories as good as they can be.

It demystifies our view of the competition, with all its ceremonial grandiosity, sweeping music and heart-tugging TV profiles. It takes our perception of these impenetrable sports heroes and turns it upside-down.

Once the awkwardness of setting up R.J. Decker‘s puzzle pieces ends, we see the potential for it to be a fun, quirky case-of-the-week detective series that will concentrate on its characters’ stories as much if not more than the weekly case.

If you’ve been a fan of this show over the last quarter-century, you’re going to watch these new episodes, and they’re going to be as funny and sometimes frustrating as they’ve always been.

If you’re looking to see some catharsis from the victims of The Golden State Killer, then this special episode of I’ll Be Gone In The Dark will be satisfying. But if you’re looking for additional information about the case, you’ll likely be left disappointed.

Mid-Century Modern feels old-fashioned, even for a four-camera sitcom, mainly because it can’t seem to portray its characters in a way that’s more appropriate for 2025 than 1995.

Bupkis has some flaws, and Davidson at times suffers from the generosity he and his co-creators have given to the rest of the cast and guest stars. But it’s still a funny show that takes some surprising early emotional turns that still feel earned.

From Scratch is a perfect slice of escapism for the wine moms and independent women of the world. It’s not worthy of awards, but it is worth recommending to my fellow die-hard romantics as a blithe bit of distraction from everyday stress and sorrows.

Whether you’ve read Hannah-Jones’ work or are coming to it for the first time, The 1619 Project is a fascinating look at the Black population’s significant contributions to the building of the U.S., with a nuanced approach that was never in our U.S. History books.

Obviously this isn’t necessarily something to jump into completely cold. But fans of the MonsterVerse should enjoy this deeper dive into the lore of those films, with more room (and necessity) for emotional nuance than those big-budget adventures.

Between Seyfried’s performance and the bread crumbs we get about Mickey’s past in the first episode, there’s enough to keep us watching Long Bright River. But we can’t shake the feeling that, without Seyfried in the mix, the show would be indistinguishable from other procedurals of its type.

Lockerbie: A Search For The Truth is carried by Colin Firth, but its concentration on one man’s quest for the truth also keeps the show’s writers and producers from drifting into melodrama around a real-life terrorist act.

Fishback is the key to the watchability of Swarm. As her character becomes a more experienced killer, Fishback becomes more confident in her performance. The show is definitely stylishly shot (Glover directed the first episode), but much of that would be empty without Fishback’s performance.

We’re hoping that some of the quirkiness of Dispatches From Elsewhere meshes better with story as the series goes along, but the ensemble’s initial chemistry compels us to keep watching.

It feels like it’s going to be an exhausting show to watch; for every moment that will be interesting and show the real change in the power dynamics between men and women, there might be two others that will feel like we’re barely in one story before we rocket to another.

St. Denis Medical arrives incredibly sure of itself, having learned all the best lessons from its predecessors. The cast has chemistry, the scripts are sharp and smart, and the guest star potential is huge.

Amadeus works as a series, not just because it looks fantastic, but that the main characters are treated as the nuanced people they were, and there seems to be less filler than one might expect.

When viewed as its own entity with intriguing, at times touching, ties to a world we know and love, The Paper is a skillfully-crafted mockumentary with heaps of heart and potential.

Night Sky is a decent series that is nudged into the very good category because of the performances of J.K. Simmons and Sissy Spacek.

The strong performances of Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow continue to make The Old Man a must-watch, but it definitely has enough confidence in its ensemble to give us stories without either of them in front of the camera.

If you’re a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or if you are super into the zombie apocalypse genre, then you’ll want to STREAM IT, because this show was made specifically for you. Otherwise, despite the vivid animation and high-octane action sequences, Marvel Zombies isn’t the most accessible title, so if you’re not the target audience, you may be better off SKIPPING IT

What the series lacks in laugh-out-loud moments, it more than makes up for in thought-provoking ones, especially if you’ve found yourself wondering what Che would do if he had more agency and authority in selecting the sketches on SNL.

While its narrative structure is as dry as a bone, Who Killed Jill Dando? carries a lot of intrigue, simply because of how famous the case is and how wildly speculative the investigation got.

Death Valley is a funny mystery series with a good pairing at its center. Let’s hope the mysteries improve as the season goes along.

A big component of his celebrity is his general niceness, and as the singer ambles around midtown, it’s all as amiable as his style of performance typically is. What mild pressure One Shot exerts on the viewer is through its technical maneuvering, but neither Sheeran nor his crew seem to care about “proving it.” It’s just a mechanism to move the singer’s nice guy energy into multiple spaces, and sure, maybe sell a few records along the way.

With a tried-and-true formula, SNL UK‘s cast most likely will find their voices and establish themselves as a separate entity, albeit with the same plusses and minuses that the American show has. Some sketches and performances will become legendary; but most, forgettable. Unless SNL UK can break out of this formula and determine what makes them special, the show may never match the heights of Monty Python, or even the Canadian alternatives from SCTV through Kids in the Hall.

Malcolm In The Middle: Life’s Still Unfair brings the original series’ chaotic energy to the 2020s, taking into account that the chaos just needs to be a little bit different nowadays.

Like most of Guy Ritchie’s material when he’s in caper and kooky criminals mode, The Gentlemen is a romp. Chippy, funny, stylish, cartoonishly violent, touched with mild absurdity.

Transplant feels like two different shows: A gritty one about Bash’s experiences as a doctor in war-torn Syria, and how he brings his life experience to his job; and a standard medical drama with pretty people solving medical mysteries every week. And the two really don’t mix.

It’s definitely a much better use of Hahn as Agatha than just continuing the WandaVision format. .... We’re excited to see Hahn, Plaza and the rest of the cast of Agatha All Along take Agatha’s story in whatever direction it goes.

Awkwafina is pretty funny in Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens. But so is the rest of the cast, and she grounds her comedy by concentrating on her family.

Like a lot of the animated programs Fox has put out in the past 15 years, this one needs some patience. Perhaps the rapid-fire jokes we see in group will give way to these individual stories that will mine laughs from the characters. But right now, the show is so overpopulated it doesn’t give any of these characters room to explore.

Genius: Aretha seems content to tell Franklin’s story through signal events in her life. Those broad strokes leave significant narrative gaps, but magnetic singing and acting from Cynthia Erivo goes a long way to keeping it on point.

We’re a bit concerned that the main characters in Dead Pixels aren’t going to rise above how pathetic they are in the first episode. But the episode was funny enough (despite the bleeps) that we have hope that these people will be shown to have a life beyond just an MMORPG.

There are enough funny elements, and good performances, in Time Bandits to keep watching beyond the first episode. But we’re not sure there is enough there to sustain audience interest — whether it’s kids or adults — for ten episodes.

While Murdaugh Murders is a somewhat concise guide to the murder charges around Alex Murdaugh, there are better options out there.

A Very Royal Scandal takes an event from the very recent past and gives it some fascinating context, aided by good performances from Sheen, Wilson and Scanlan.

I Know This Much Is True is an emotionally harrowing tale, but Ruffalo’s performance is so remarkable that you’ll find hope in the relationship between the Birdsey brothers.

Young Rock starts off well and it feels like it’ll settle in to a nice family vibe once it gets into a groove with its format. And as much as we like Johnson, it will get even better when we see less of The Rock.

The Lost Flowers Of Alice Hart is a portrayal of domestic abuse that starts out a bit obtuse, but given the intense subject matter, that obtuseness is an effective way to bring people into Alice’s story.

Stream it, but only for Ormond’s fine performance and vulnerability. The rest of Gold Digger has yet to show us that it’s going to be anything more than Dirty John for Brits.

Sirens works because it leans into the absurdity of the story and the awfulness of most of the characters, making the show a dark comedy that’s truly comedic.

We don’t know if Dark Wolf is gonna show us exactly how Ben Edwards became the Dark Wolf, which as a title feels airport novel generic. But we are interested in Taylor Kitsch building on the brood he brought to the Edwards role in Terminal List, or perhaps showing us how he got that way in the first place. And yeah, the guns and jocularity and serious people saying stuff like “Team 1, go!” into ear bud microphones – that’ll be here, too, which is its own draw for shows such as this.

Running Point settles into a nice comedic groove in its second season, with an ensemble that works well together and new additions to the cast that fit in pretty well.

Like we said, the cast of The Agency carries the show, but we’re not sure how much the stories will hold viewer interest unless they quickly get more interesting.

While not our cup of tea, we definitely see how appealing The Sandman would be to fans of Gaiman and his work. We’re just not sure it’s particularly accessible to those of us who are new to the story.

The world that Andy Greenwald has set up in Briarpatch is one that’s worth visiting, despite the heavy hand on quirk.

While the episode with McElhenny, Waters and Konkle was funny, the episode that starred Grant was funny and heartwarming.

More than ever, Doctor Who feels like an old-fashioned movie adventure serial geared more towards kids than anyone else. But because of Gatwa’s enthusiastic portrayal of The Doctor, it’s still a pleasure to watch.

Hawkeye works because of the chemistry between Renner and Steinfeld, but also because it prioritizes character slightly more than action.

The Swamp‘s biggest strength, its nuance, is potentially its weakness. Viewers are so accustomed to super biased storytelling when it comes from contemporary political docs that The Swamp‘s extremely sensitive portrayals of three controversial Republican politicians as people might actually upset some viewers.

The Mysterious Benedict Society is smart without being overly precious, but is just weird enough to keep kids’ attention. It helps that the writing and acting help keep things from flying off into Tweeland.

Patience shows that its title character’s autism is an asset rather than a problem, and while there are time when Bea is a little flummoxed by Patience’s habits and routines, the show more often than not shows what a neurodivergent person can bring to a complex job like policing.

The second season of Landman is stronger than the first, mainly because the women on the show are in a stronger position than they were last season, giving Thornton’s Tommy all he can handle.

We’re giving a recommendation of 61st Street mostly for the performances of Vance and Ellis. But we’re definitely concerned that the show will lean too hard on things we’ve seen in this genre too many times already to say anything new.

The fact that we have a solid idea of who Kim is at the outset is more than enough for us. ... While Two Weeks To Live needs to deepen a few other characters, it set up its story very well in its first episode, aided by the fine lead performance of Maisie Williams.

Despite how slow and disjointed the first episode of Hellbound is, it sets up an interesting story that could go just about anywhere.

Doctor Odyssey is a pretty dumb, inessential watch, but an entertaining one, mostly due to the performances of the main cast and guest stars.

Serrano and Searle manage to give their four main characters enough layers in the first 30 minutes to hook viewers in and see just how Santi’s story plays out.

Black Narcissus just doesn’t have enough story to latch onto and pay attention to for three hours. It’s slow and talky, and it doesn’t have any characters that you want to follow by the end of the first hour.

The Secrets She Keeps certainly has a bit of a Lifetime movie feel to it, but the leads bring more than enough credibility to their roles to make the series worth watching.

Murder Before Evensong is an engaging mystery that builds a world around Canon Daniel Clement as he becomes the sleuthing vicar that will likely solve murders in future series.

Wednesday continues to be a funny, scary delight because of Ortega’s performance and because Burton has gone all in with the nightmarish imagery written by Gough, Millar and the show’s writers.