Despite the performances by the miniseries’ leads, Death And Nightingales is just too boring and inaccessible to really get into; by the end of the first episode, we were even more in the dark about the story than we were at the beginning.

All of which just makes it seem as though Oswalt didn’t write enough material in lockdown, but wanted to or felt he was obligated to deliver another special this year, so here we are. ... Skip it. Unless you’re a die-hard Patton Oswalt fan, in which case you’ll stream it, lovingly enjoy the best parts and forgive the rest anyhow.

The world doesn’t necessarily need one from Coleen Rooney’s POV in order for us to understand the situation better. If you’re a fan of football or WAG culture, you’ll certainly appreciate the level of access this series gives to the Rooneys and their inner circle, but general audiences can safely SKIP IT.

We like Clarke’s strong, stoic presence as DCI Ellis in Inspector Ellis, which is why we’re recommending the show. But we hope the series has less-confusing and more-engaging mysteries in the other two episodes.

Luke Grimes is up to the challenge of leading a Yellowstone spin-off as Kayce Dutton, as Marshals inserts his character and all that family lore into an action-procedural, very familiar CBS-type series.

While there are good performances and some interesting characters in We Were Liars, we were pretty bored with the nondescript teenage characters at the show’s center, and wanted to scream every time we heard Candence’s narration.

It’s not hard to imagine this dystopian future, and DMZ offers a compelling story at the heart of the show.

Latifah’s empathetic performance makes The Equalizer extremely watchable, as does the rest of the cast. We just hope that the cases Robyn McCall gets get better as the season goes on.

Zukerman is no Tom Hanks, but he’s sufficiently charming as Langdon to make us believe he’s the young version of Brown’s signature character. ... The more we buy into Langdon’s prolific skills and the more twisty the story is, the better. But we’re not sure if Dworkin, Beattie and their writers will be able to pull it off.

After watching the first three episodes of Euphoria Season 3, it’s unclear whether there’s hope for Rue and her friends, but there’s definitely a chance this polarizing HBO show might end its run on an incandescent high note.

Season 2 is a delightful improvement over the first season. If you loved to hate And Just Like That... Season 1, there are still enough bonkers moments to fuel your hate-tweets. And if you’re a SATC diehard, you’ll find yourself swooning (and screaming) over where the decades-long saga takes Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda next.

It’s one thing to say that the new Frasier is missing the chemistry between the cast members that made the original series so special. But it also tries way too hard to parallel the original in the most crucial spots, making it painful to watch at times, and not nearly as funny as it could be.

It feels like Painkiller wants to say something profound bout how the opioid crisis was started, but does so in a way that feels completely tone-deaf.

By keeping the stories simple, Roar is able to send its messages without hammering it over viewers’ heads. Could some of the episodes stick their landings better? Sure. But the storytelling in the series mostly solid.

It’s a bleak look at the ways in which power corrupts, seduces, and seesaws that will leave you howling in laughter and twitching in discomfort in the same breath. .... The Regime is a twisted triumph.

We were happy to take in the contemplative pace of The Madison as well as watching Pfeiffer’s performance. But we’re also concerned that Sheridan’s penchant for leaden dialogue and sketchy portrayals of female characters are going to ultimately drag this show down.

Wilderness isn't one of those shows that's going to challenge you with a plot full of moral dilemmas and high drama. It's a show that’s more than a bit mordant and campy, but that and the performances of Coleman and Jackson-Cohen add to its appeal.

Overall it feels like one of those shows that’s hard to judge from the first episode. What we’ve seen so far we like, but we don’t know enough about where the show is going to get excited over what’s next.

This new version of The Stand is off to an intriguing start, whether you’re a fan of the book or not.

Devil In Ohio is a perfectly serviceable show that should keep audiences entertained for eight episodes. But at times it feels like something that’s a bit too slick and a bit too uncomplicated for a show that’s about a cult victim that ruins lives, especially a show for Netflix.

Harry & Meghan feels like a genuine and honest story of what it’s like behind palace doors.

If you’re looking for a lot of teen angst and conflict, Finding Her Edge is probably not for you. But the performances are good enough that you’ll have no problem sitting down and watching this mostly easygoing show with your entire family.

You may tire of the message Scott Burns is trying to get across by the end of Extrapolations‘ eight episodes, but there are moments in there that will be affecting and effective. You just may have to try your luck to find them.

Murder In A Small Town is both a murder mystery series and a romance series. Can the two mesh? So far, it has, mainly thanks to the chemistry between Sutherland and Kreuk.

The Captain is broad enough to entertain anyone, but it’s an absolute must-stream for baseball fans.

Stream it, but only if you really loved Season 1 of Carnival Row. The first episode of its final season is a big mess storywise, and doesn’t help viewers catch up from a first season that seems like it debuted eons ago.

We’ll give the show a tentative recommendation. But this show is the rare case where the first episode just doesn’t give viewers enough to figure out whether the show is worth watching, and what we did see didn’t get us all that excited about what’s to come.

The episodes we watched did fine during the funny parts, not as fine during the serious ones. ... But what we appreciated was the sophisticated nature of the humor we saw in each 16-22-minute episode. ... It’s also refreshing to not hear those [“remember when we did this?”] lines, and just have stories about how the humans relate to each other has so utterly changed because of COVID. Let’s hope the rest of the episodes follow suit.

Special Ops: Lioness isn’t a mess, but it’s strangely inessential and inert, given its cast and Sheridan’s involvement. There are better, similar shows out there.

His thoughts are shallow and ugly. Sometimes they’re afterthoughts. The second episode devotes a full parody to Steven Seagal. It’s neither nostalgic nor revealing.

Instead of making Diane Dunbrowski a walking Chicago joke machine, the creators of Chicago Party Aunt have actually given her a heart and a rudimentary moral code. And that will be how the show will be able to sustain itself for multiple seasons.

007: Road to a Million is in many other ways just a conventional challenge-based reality show. But it makes the right moves to establish its Bond branding as a frame, and rejects much of the superficiality common to the genre.

Fire Country has more story and stronger characters at the outset than a CBS procedural like this usually has, and that’ll carry the show when the fires start looking all the same as each other.

Though optimism for its worthy cause is infused in every scene, there’s an underlying sadness to Hollywood.

Clarice, the character, has been turned into a quivering mess, and Clarice, the show, makes the fatal mistake of thinking that Clarice’s trauma is the most interesting thing about her. ... The real problem with CBS’s version of Clarice stems from the writing. ... While Episodes 2 and 3 show promising signs of Clarice using her investigative skills, that’s all undermined by scenes where supporting characters can get her to unravel with a few mundane questions.

Mainly because Sophia Bush and Jason Isaacs are compelling to watch — individually and together — Good Sam rises slightly above the run-of-the-mill network medical procedural. But the relationships and characters will have to evolve to keep us tuning in.

Missing You is a solid thriller that may have you shaking your head at some of its twists. But good performances and an intriguing premise will make some of those silly twists easier to take.

Avatar: The Last Airbender accomplishes a rare feat for a live-action adaptation of an animates series: It brings new people into its world while giving fans of the original more than enough to keep them watching.

Gutsy reveals enough insight about the Clintons and the people they talk to make it watchable, even enjoyable. We just wish there was more depth to the episodes.

The performances of Ashford and Quaid, and the wry tone of Happy Face are what makes us want to keep watching.

The show comes off more like an exhausting parody than anything else. ... There were distractions beyond Zellweger’s fat suit. Doing a fictionalized take on the absurdity of a true crime story lends itself to too many stylistic flourishes that aren’t necessary. ... There also seems to be very little in the way of subtlety or shading to the story.

A fine lead performance from Justin Theroux, in addition to a story that’s been rejiggered just enough to make it more modern than its source material gives this new version of The Mosquito Coast a real chance to be the next talked-about series.

Tell Me Your Secrets is a bleak show that withholds information in order to ramp up the mystery, but to the detriment of a coherent story.

Twisted Metal is noisy and violent, with some decent performances, but that’s about it.

There is no need to watch Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal if you already watched The Ashley Madison Affair. But if you haven’t, it’s an entertaining — if cringe-inducing — docuseries about the dating site and how its users got exposed when its weak security was breached.

Snowpiercer‘s middling pilot is saved by its leads. We’re intrigued to see what Manson can do with the characters and story he inherited from episode 2 on.

There are funny moments in Frank Of Ireland, but Frank is so cartoonishly awful that we wonder how he ever got friends or a girlfriend to begin with. Either way, we’re not intrerested in finding out.

The story is what’s going to keep viewers watching, because there aren’t really any compelling characters to latch onto.

Life On Our Planet is a fascinating look at how life evolved on Earth, with stunning visual effects that show how long-extinct species might have lived.

Fool Me Once has enough potential for some intriguing plot twists, and more than enough solid performances, to make up for some awkward dialogue and plot points that feel like they’re going to unnecessarily complicate things.

Ten Pound Poms works because its characters are easy to root for as they try to make new lives for themselves in Australia. And the fact that the show is working towards a conclusion ensures that the stories will stay focused.

While Martin’s gritty, skeptical, and brutal look at the genre appealed to an HBO audience, I’m not sure Jordan’s romantic, mystical, and hopeful version will be as ubiquitously embraced. The Wheel of Time can’t be the next Game of Thrones. It’s just not in the source material’s DNA. But Prime Video’s series has the chance to be the first true Wheel of Time, and that excites this all-too-earnest nerd to bits.

The Irrational works mainly because of Martin and the backstory he has with Hill’s character and the bombing case. The mysteries themselves are pretty bad, but that will matter less if the continuing story is good.

I found The Girl Before frustrating, if not downright ludicrous at times.

56 Days is supposed to show the erotic chemistry between two people that led to a wild affair then a gruesome murder. But the affair feels artificial and the investigation of the murder feels excruciatingly drawn out, and the timeline jumping makes the show tiring to watch.

While it’s hard to say based on only three episodes that the show is anywhere near back to the heights of the beloved first season of the series, Neal has a steady handle on what works on Killing Eve. ... The show is at its best when it’s as off-kilter as Comer’s performance as Villanelle, and the first three hours capture that tone only sporadically

We were left frustrated that Little became more like a character in Lauren’s story, not knowing much more about the killer at the end of the hour than we knew in the beginning.

Love In The Time Of Corona isn’t telling any stories that’ll blow you away, but the couples have understandable chemistry, and the production values are surprisingly high, given the restrictions the producers and crew were under.

This revival may not be great – especially with our outspoken minx missing – but it’s watchable, even when it feels like a trainwreck. I can’t wholeheartedly recommend And Just Like That… to the casual viewer based on this strange mess of a pilot, but for those who still harbor a soft spot for Carrie Bradshaw and her crew, there’s something worth indulging in here.

We’ve held out hope in the past that The Morning Show would control the impulse to spiral into flights of fancy and actually stick to the drama involved in trying to produce credible news shows in this trying media environment, but the fourth season has proven to us that this is not what the show is ever going to be about, and we’re just not into what it is trying to do.

Alice & Jack sometimes feels like one of the most interesting love stories we’ve seen in ages, and at others it’s infuriatingly annoying. But Gleeson and Riseborough have undeniable chemistry, which is enough for us to want to see this decade-and-a-half romance play out.

I was entertained by The Creep Tapes. It all pretty much depends on Duplass to make us laugh and creep us out, and he delivers.

The Letter for the King will scratch an itch or three for fantasy mavens although The Witcher seems prime to scratch harder.

This is a SKIP IT to all but the diehard Santa Clause fans out there. If you rewatch the entire Santa Clause trilogy every year, of course you’re going to want to see what happens next. The rest of us are fine sticking to the first film — or just rewatching Elf.

Professor T doesn’t tread new ground. But the writing is solid and Miller and the rest of the cast do a good job of making the obsessive detective trope entertaining to watch.

Hey, this thing is creepy. Teacup thrusts us into the everyday life of a family who must navigate their own internal problems as the world around them becomes increasingly unsettling. And weird! And probably morebloody!

While Mayor Of Kingstown boasts fine performances, it’s confusing at times and incredibly depressing at others. If we wanted to watch a show that’s relentlessly grim, there are much better choices out there.

While Intelligence’s first episode could have been a skosh funnier, Mohammed, Schwimmer and the rest of the cast do such a strong job of embodying their characters that we’re eager to see where things go.

There’s a lot about Panic that makes us roll our eyes. But we’ll give it a recommendation because we were actually rooting for its main character by the end of the first episode, and we were surprised that we were doing so. That’s a good sign for the rest of the season.

In another producers hands, The Watcher could have been a taut, tense thriller. But with Murphy and Brennan at the helm, it becomes more campy than tense, and even a stellar cast can’t save the show from itself.

The Couple Next Door really leans on the stupidest parts of a plot that should just depend on the sexual chemistry among its four stars.

The first episode of The Swarm suggests that there will be a lot of throat clearing and not a whole heck of a lot of actual thrills.

Nightsleeper has the potential to be a tense six-episode thrill ride or it could be a predictable bore. The first episode makes us think it might be the latter, but there are enough good elements in the first episode to keep us watching.

Despite the excellent cast, there were lines and situations that were so clunky and predictable that we shook our heads that they made it to the final cut. But there is an interesting twist at the end of the episode that leads us to believe that some of the clunkiness will eventually be ironed out.

Seeing Rock open his performance with jokes about “woke traps” and Elon Musk’s sperm count and OJ Simpson (in 2023!) left me feeling weary for what was to come. ... Much like he did in Tamborine, Rock shifts his focus in the second half of his special from observations about the world to look inward at himself and how he’s reacting to the world now that he’s single again in his 50s.

Exploding Kittens has a surprising amount of heart for a show about a cat who thinks he’s God because, well, he is God.

Love Life' is pretty good show that has fine performances, starting with an Emmy-worthy turn from Anna Kendrick.

We have no confidence that this mix-and-match episode format is anything more than a gimmick and will just lead to confused viewers.

The Larkins is a good-natured bit of British comfort TV that is a great antidote to the heaviness of most current dramas.

What role Bronte plays in all this, whether she becomes an intellectual or even a physical love interest for Joe, is yet to be seen. It seems that Joe is attracted to her because she provides something Kate doesn’t, even though he loves Kate as much as anyone he’s ever met. That complex dance is going to be interesting to watch.

The Feud On Shelbury Drive does a fine job of spinning what seems to be a small dispute into a thriller that anyone who has an issue with their neighbors can relate to.

This so-called origin story is off to a horrible start, and the few cheap laughs that you’ll find in the first episode don’t necessarily make it worth hanging around for 10 long, awful installments.

An ensemble that both highlights these characters’ strengths and humanizes their weaknesses. Leading the charge is Nicole Kidman in a role practically designed for her. ... The result is a show that’s as addicting and delightfully soapy as HBO’s summer hit The White Lotus.

Foodtopia, developed by the same team minus Hill but adding Conrad Vernon, is quite a bit darker. And it’s also quite a bit less funny.

Part of Emily in Paris’ charm is that the show never takes itself too seriously. That charming tactic is implemented again in Season 3, but the writers make [a] refreshing, effective effort to give characters, storylines, and relationship dynamics some added depth this time around.

The way that Lightfoot has led the viewers down this path is intriguing.

The only thing that keeps Apples Never Fall from being yet another eye-rolling show about wealthy people being terrible is Annette Bening’s performance as a woman who is still looking for something, even in retirement.

Don’t get us wrong; the acting is top-notch across the board, but this just feels like one of those shows where the characters will really find minds of their own a la Westworld or it’ll continue to be antiseptic and dull. We’re thinking it’s going to be the latter.

The entire time I was watching the premiere, I was thinking that the show should have been called Avengers: Nazi Hunters.

We just wish a bit more thought was put into the story’s logic. At times it feels like there’s not enough material for the 90-minute runtime, and at others it feels like details have been left out. The first episode was scarier than the second, but the second was more fun than the first. It was mostly an entertaining episode, just inconsistent.

Watson jams Holmesian mythology, quirky doctors, and complex medical mysteries into stories that can’t really handle all three at once, and it shows in how none of it feels well thought-out.

We’d rather see a bioseries about Mike Tyson where Tyson is intimately involved, because we’re pretty sure it will have a lot of subtleties about Tyson’s life that Mike lacks. His life deserves better than a series that treats him like a curiosity more than anything else.

We would be happier if Scarpetta was a period piece with its main characters’ younger versions instead of its current time-jumping format, but we’re hoping that the present-day storyline comes around as Kay and company revisit the serial killer case from the ’90s.

Filthy Rich isn’t exactly high art, but it’s satisfyingly soapy, with some decent performances and a couple of chuckles that show us that it’s not taking itself at all seriously.

Mr. Mayor has some very funny moments, and a growing chemistry among its ensemble. But it also has two ace stars in Danson and Hunter. We can’t wait to see how their characters’ relationship grows over the season.

Only because Snipes plays such a dynamic role as Carlton, and his chemistry with Hart is fun to watch. The rest of True Story feels manufactured, and Hart’s role is too close to reality to separate the Kid from Hart, especially when he’s complaining about being rich and famous.

The supernatural aspect of Harlan Coben’s Lazarus makes the series a bit different than most Coben mysteries. But at its heart it’s still a solid Coben murder mystery, with undertones about family history and relationships.

The Continental feels like it’s more for John Wick completists than fans of well-plotted action series.