The Beauty is focused, gruesome and just funny enough to keep things moving. All of this is miraculous, given Ryan Murphy’s recent track record.

The presence of the old guard will keep fans interested in CSI: Vegas. But the new crew hasn’t distinguished themselves for the most part just yet, and they’ll need to do that soon before the presence of Petersen, Fox and company overwhelms the show.

Raised by Wolves has the potential to be the first great sci-fi show of the ’20s. Visually stunning, technically marvelous, and trippy as hell, it feels like both a callback to the golden era of sci-fi and a template for what the genre could be in this century. Raised by Wolves is a must-watch for sci-fi devotees and a return to early career form for Sir Ridley Scott.

If you’re expecting full-on Brooks in History Of The World, Part II, you’ll likely be disappointed, but there’s enough of his comedy DNA in each episode to keep fans watching. Plus, most of the sketches have at least one big laugh, and that’s always a good thing.

Transatlantic takes a serious story and gives it a bit of a bouncy, adventurous edge, thanks to some crisp writing and a fun lead performance by Jacobs. But it still pays reverence to the people who risked everything to help Nazi refugees, as well as the refugees themselves.

It’s all patently ridiculous. If it were ridiculous in an entertaining way, that would be one thing. But Tennant’s side of the story is just so insane that you’ll be too distracted by it to be entertained by Tucci’s side.

There is potential for Kindred to go awry if she show’s writers end up concentrating on the wrong side of Dana’s time travel adventure. But it’s definitely an intriguing premise that brings up so many questions that we’ll keep watching to see if they’re answered.

Dave starts slow but does a good job of introducing (or re-introducing) us to Lil Dicky, and how he became a hip hop star by just being Dave.

Shantaram doesn’t really dig too deep into the issues facing India in the 1980s, or how an expat like Hunnam’s character fits in given those issues. It’s a slow-moving thriller that we hope picks up some momentum as the series goes along.

Viewers will be drawn into the main story in The Control Room. We hope, however, they’re not distracted by the piecemeal flashbacks that build the characters’ backstories.

Will the six episodes of Steal be full of tension-filled twists and turns or just spiral out into silliness? We’re certainly interested enough in the story after the first episode to find out, but given that the running time is only about five or so hours, we’re hoping things will stay tight and tense.

In every conceivable way, Season 2 put this series on track to be one of the best rom-coms in television history. It’s exactly what the world needs right now.

If you don’t go in looking for bombshells from Harry or other superstars, The Me You Can’t See is a revealing look at mental illness and how our awareness of how pervasive it is in its many forms is just starting to develop.

The satire of Avenue 5 isn’t quite as sharp as some of Iannucci's other shows were right out of the gate, but there’s more than enough good stuff there to keep us curious as to where he’s going to take this story.

You’re going to need some patience with I Love LA in order to enjoy it. Like most comedies about found family, there’s too much jokey chatter and not enough actual character depth to help viewers latch onto the situations of Maia or anyone else. But the friendship between Maia and Tallulah tells us that there may be more underneath the vocal fry.

While there’s a lot about Uncoupled that’s frustratingly shallow, Harris’ performance and the show’s frequent funny moments are more than enough to keep us watching.

We’re cautiously optimistic that David E. Kelley has taken Presumed Innocent in a direction that’s not only distinctive from the novel and film, but has done so in an watchable way. We might need a few more episodes to know for sure, though.

We don’t think Murdaugh: Murder In The Family will add anything new to the copious amount of material already out there about the Alex Murdaugh case, despite the fine performances and uncluttered storytelling.

The sleeper stars of this first episode of season five are obviously the actors who get to play younger versions of the show’s core characters. ... Season 5 of Yellowstone, its longest yet, has the future of the Duttons, their ranch, and the complexion of the state they call home in its steady rifle sights.

Twilight of the Gods happily gets lusty and bloodsoaked as it explores the tenets and characters of Norse mythology, with a strong sense of adventure to go with its weaving of fact, fable, and director Zack Snyder’s signature style.

Talamasca: The New Order is entertaining enough for fans of Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe to get their fill, but we’re not sure if the story hangs together well enough for newbies.

He can also host a nature show like nobody’s business, bringing a down-to-earth quality to the genre that we don’t often see from the mostly-detached style we see most of the time. ... Amazing shots and a tension-building score add to Smith’s presence, whether it’s the scenes he’s in or just the ones he’s narrating.

Save Our Squad with David Beckham is a sports-movie-worthy underdog story, charming and inspiring and a reminder of the childlike joy of sports.

Again, it’s really hard to get excited about anything in Irvine Welsh’s Crime outside of Dougray Scott’s performance. But once again his performance draws viewers into the story.

Strong performances and an interesting story drive Dope Girls. The first episode was well-paced and explained the main characters’ situations well enough to make us want to watch the rest of the story.

Class Of ’09 is too busy jumping between timelines to tell a cohesive story that has any kind of momentum.

It’s a series with a whole that is far more fascinating than its slow-paced parts. If you give it the space of a few episodes, this new drama promises great things.

Chimp Crazy is a docuseries that piles on the storytelling drama, but it also evokes strong emotions from us, which is what a good docuseries should do.

Let The Right One In is a bit uneven, mainly because some stories are less interesting than others, even if they’ll all get connected somehow by the end of the season. We just want to see how Mark and Ellie manage Ellie’s unusual life, and we want to see more of that as the show goes on.

Killing Eve Season 3 is deeper, darker, and bigger in its scope than ever before.

Grand Crew, like its fellow freshman sitcom American Auto, has a lot to like but still needs some time to find its way. But at least the show will be entertaining to watch as it finds its comedic footing.

As soapy as Roadkill is, it has a great cast going for it, led by the always watchable Hugh Laurie. In fact, Laurie is the entire reason to watch this pulpy miniseries, just to see if his character can outrun everyone trying to bring him down.

There are certainly funny moments in the first episode of Government Cheese, and we like the potential of the story, plus the performances of Oyelowo and Missick. But the first episode didn’t grab us as much as we thought it would. There’s enough good stuff there, though, to encourage us to stay with this show.

Believe me when I say that Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette is the first truly captivating new show of 2026 and an instant addition to the list of shows you’ll want to watch and rewatch… just have a box of tissues at the ready.

It’s telling that Wexner himself did not want to be interviewed for the docuseries. That association with Epstein is going to be explored in-depth in the subsequent two episodes, especially episode 2, and it seems like that is what is going to dominate, more than even the usual vagaries of the fast fashion world that Wexner helped pioneer.

The talented cast, clever mystery, and ’90s nostalgia are a winning combination. For these summer girls, 1999 might be cruel, but for the rest of us, the show is the perfect summer escape.

The early going of Invasion season two definitely has fun with the idea that a tech mogul disruptor-in-chief could one day enter a mind meld with encroaching aliens. Nikhil will be one to watch as his motives become more clear.

The Haunting Of Bly Manor is entertaining to watch even during the times it’s not trying to scare the audience, and that’s something that not many horror series can do.

The largely unfunny pilot of Going Dutch would normally lead us to give the show a “skip it,” but given the showrunner’s pedigree and the interpersonal potential of the father-daughter story, we’re giving the show a chance to improve.

We’re recommending it on the strength of Gomez’s lead performance and Lawrence’s ability to guide his showrunners to better episodes as his shows first seasons go along. But it’s too generic at this point to be considered a decent family sitcom, much less a successor to such a well-loved ’80s series.

Secret Invasion has a fascinating concept and some truly incredible performances for an MCU joint, but its writing and direction both fall a little flat. It’s the kind of serious show that Marvel fans were thirsting for five years ago, but now might cause some viewers to nod off.

There’s just enough archival pictures and footage, along with the traditional talking head interviews, though, to give the series the right amount of docuseries legitimacy. But the lip-synched reenactments, combines with the access the recordings from Grosse, Playfair and others provide, paint an appropriately scary picture of a house that seemed to either be legitimately haunted or suffering through lots of scary, unexplainable natural phenomena.

We’re reserving judgement about the slow pacing of Constellation until we get to see more episodes. But for a show that starts with a disaster and leads into a conspiracy, we were surprised at how little we were engaged with the material.

Hamm’s performance in Your Friends & Neighbors is what will keep us watching, as he transforms from a guy who has gotten too big for his britches to a guy who now knows that was the case and is doing something about it.

We like Tucker and Steele’s chemistry and there’s potential for the stories of the week to strongly support the greater mystery as the season goes forward. But it could also collapse under its own weight. At this point, we’re just not sure which way it’ll go.

Season 2 of Why Women Kill surpasses the first season by concentrating on one story and one set of interconnected characters, boosted by an excellent cast.

We get the feeling that Black Rabbit is going to be problematic and overstuffed as the series moves along, but Law and Bateman are so compelling as Jake and Vince, we’ll keep watching, just to see how far Vince pushes his brother’s goodwill.

While the first episode of Playing Nice is a bit predictable, the performances of the leads, along with the prospects of what will happen in the rest of the series, adds tension to the psychological thriller.

Refn spreads out his sensory overload, giving all the brooding and brashness ample space to breathe. It can be repetitive, yes, but never monotonous. ... But, at the end of the day, this is NWR for NWR-heads.

Once all of the mania settles down and we get into the meat of the story about Kalanick’s fight to get Uber established and grow it into what it is today we actually got bored.

There’s nothing actually wrong with All Her Fault. But we’re just so tired of these kinds of thrillers that we just don’t have the energy to spare watching rich people in nice kitchens trying to keep their secrets from getting out.

Walker: Independence is a pretty straightforward western that is helped by a well-considered world that’s been built around its main character.

We enjoyed the quirky fun of the first episode of Best Medicine, as well as the layered performances of Josh Charles and Abigail Spencer.

What we’re hoping is that the one good story out of the four in No Good Deed can carry the series’ first season, at least until the others improve. The show’s excellent ensemble deserves that kind of patience.

The pieces are there for a really fun dark comedy. But things just may need time to come together.

The first episode is more heartfelt than hilarious, but there’s enough of the former for us to forgive the lack of the latter.

While it is naturally big on the technicalities of tennis, there is a humanistic story at the center that is appealing to everyone.

There’s some behind-the-scenes stories that will be entertaining to hardcore fans. Largely, though, there’s a stiffness to the proceedings, a conscious attempt either not to be Winning Time or to directly rebut it. ... Legacy seems so determined to avoid controversial subjects that it comes off dry as a result; even the show’s willingness to discuss the Buss family’s internal struggles over control of the team feels somewhat contrived.

Despite Moss’ best efforts, the show is breaking at the seams when it comes to its larger narrative. ... Unless you’re already a dedicated Handmaid’s Tale fan, you can skip the drudgery of this season and check back in with June when the series comes to a close with Season 6.

Despite our reservations, Gyeongseong Creature has a good story buried in all the murkiness. But we’re not sure if the show will actually be able to focus on that story as the first season goes along.

STREAM IT, but with reservations. The second season of Cross still has a lot of charm, especially in the relationship between Cross and Sampson, but feels like it’s going to take some time to really find what its primary story is going to be.

We’re giving Atomic a mild recommendation because there might be enough chasing through various Northern African locations to make the show a visual treat, and we’re curious about the dynamic between Max and JJ. But it also feels like show that might repeat itself too much as the two men run around with those satchels of plutonium.

There’s nothing glaringly wrong with it, just as there’s nothing so intriguing about it that you want to watch it week-to-week or even binge it once Starz has aired all the episodes.

In trying to make this sprawling narrative TV-friendly, a narrative momentum has been lost, with too many characters and too many timelines and situations going on at the same time. The three leads, Patel, Hewson and Green, all do good jobs with their roles, but the show just feels like it’s going to wander in the wilderness like the delirious Anna before it figures out where to go.

Stick is as funny as it is wholesome, and as wholesome as it is endearing. This silly golf comedy is winner in every sense and a show you might just restart the moment the final credits roll.

We don’t fault any of the acting on Ordinary Joe for this show’s issues; the actors are doing the best they can, but are stuck in a premise with a limited shelf life and already signs that it might collapse under its own weight or get too clever for its own good.

Soulmates boasts a ton of great actors putting in fine performances, but you may want to look at the episode descriptions first before plowing forward. There are some that we think will be way more satisfying than others.

While we’re still not sure The Audacity is going to be an ultimately satisfying show to watch, we are interested enough in the plot between Duncan and JoAnne to keep watching.

History Of Swear Words packs a lot of information into each 20 minute segment. And though the segments stray from their respective topics a bit, everyone looks like they’re having a cathartic good time talking about the biggest curse words in the English language.

Despite some stylistic missteps, Archie is a well-paced story about the life of Cary Grant, who most of us really only know from the roles he played in films that are 60 or more years old.

It stuck close to the original formula, with some updates. And that makes for a much more entertaining show.

Poppa’s House works because both Wayans Sr. and Jr. lean into what makes each of them funny, and are great together. The more standard sitcommy parts will get better the longer the show stays on the air.

While adding boys into the mix takes away some of the singular magic of the first season, The Wilds remains an extremely entertaining and beautifully performed series.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon continues to work because it puts one of the franchise’s best characters in an unfamiliar situation. But now that his partner in zombie-killing is on the way to his side, that should make things even better.

There were some very funny moments, but they mostly involved the supporting characters (more on that in a moment). The connection between Ginny and Georgia (and, we guess Austin, but he’s just stuck in cute-kid-land for the entire first episode) needs to be warmer and stronger for us to completely buy in.

It’s your typical Coben yarn, with multiple and seemingly unrelated threads going on at once, characters who have dark secrets that are alluded to but not mentioned outright until enough tension is drawn out, and mysteries upon mysteries.

While the video essays in Voir sometimes dip too far into pretentiousness, the dreamy visuals and insightful analysis make this a compelling watch for aspiring critics, as well as viewers looking for fresh reasons to watch classic films like Jaws.

Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? doesn’t even try to take itself seriously, making for a fun look at how the little guy tried to call a big corporation on its mistakes. We don’t imagine they got away with it, but we’re looking forward to the journey they took to get to that point.

Like most Chuck Lorre sitcoms, Leanne needs to find its way for awhile, and there are moments during the first handful of episodes that feel as cliched and “sitcommy” as it gets. But the cast starts clicking pretty quickly, especially Morgan and Johnston, and that goes a long way to upping number of genuine laughs each episode has.

Kevin works because it’s not just leaning on gags. It really tries to put its characters and stories in a position to be funny without leaning on gags, which makes the gags funny instead of fatiguing to watch.

It looks like PG:ANG will start lukewarm and only get hotter as things progress.

Hysteria! is funny, loves heavy metal, and does up its 1980s setting well. But it’s also having a real good time keeping us on the back foot.

Even though the case has been settled for almost 40 years — and Sutcliffe died in November — The Ripper is fascinating to us because it will examine the underlying factors that slowed down the investigation, instead of talking about the killer himself.

Despite Kidman’s and Grant’s performances, we couldn’t muster up enough energy to care about anyone in The Undoing, at least not enough to spend six hours unraveling its central mystery. It’s certainly watchable, but having this show come so soon after BLL makes it feel like we’ve seen it all before.

Cross is a solid crime thriller made very watchable by Hodge’s performance as the title character.

The new version has more than enough to like about it, and it gives us hope that as the writers figure out the supporting characters, the show will take off, just like the original one did.

The seven new episodes of Squid Game are stunning, shocking, heartbreaking, and even exhilarating. Squid Game Season 2 is good! It isn’t quite as good as the spectacular first season, but coming up a smidge short of utter genius means Squid Game is still pretty great.

While sometimes White House Plumbers finds it hard to satirize what is already ridiculous at face value, it still gets off some big laughs and is bolstered by the performances of Harrelson and Theroux.

Tom Jones presents Fielding’s sprawling narrative in a modern way that’s funny and well-paced. The cast is stellar, but its the chemistry between its leads that will carry the limited series.

We’ll give Trickster points for having a mostly Indigenous cast and writing staff. But the show itself has to become a bit less bleak for us to want to keep watching.

It’s Bon Jovi’s own decision-making that figures into the biggest dramatic hook in Thank You, which is the whys and hows of Sambora’s departure, and that will certainly keep us watching.

NCIS: Origins is a solid NCIS prequel that promises some backstory for Gibbs while introducing us to how the agency operated when even other government agencies had no idea it existed.

Dirty Pop smartly ties its year-by-year timestamps to songs, like Backstreet’s “I Want It That Way” and “We’ve Got It Goin’ On,” or NSYNC with “It’s Gonna be Me,” which allows us to follow how huge the 90s boy band phenomenon really got, and wonder how those groups allowed themselves to be swindled for so long. .... The AI thing is a weird outlier in contrast to how any of the other footage in Dirty Pop is used. The docuseries readily admits the footage was manipulated. But it gives off a reek of also manipulating the viewing audience.

It’s not that The Watch is a complete mess; some elements of the first episode gave us hope that the show will settle down. But the first episode was so jumbled and so proud of how witty it was, it forgot to establish anything about most of the characters we’ll be seeing for the entire season.

Despite some plot contrivances in the first episode, we’re still recommending Who Is Erin Carter? because Evin Ahmad does a good job making Erin a bit more credible.

We’re recommending B Positive mostly on the strength of the cast and the ability of Lorre and his showrunners to make the adjustments they need to find the show’s sweet spot. ... But this is one of the shakiest premises we’ve seen yet in a Lorre sitcom.

Taken on its own merits, there are definitely interesting story prospects for the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale. .... While it might be cathartic to watch June, Moira and others try to bring the government down, the show now might be too close to reality for our comfort.

Foundation is a plodding, confusing tale of a civilization’s triumph over its almost certain doom. We’d love to see the parts that show the story’s humanity and hope, but the first episode was just too boring to draw us in.