Part of the show consists of spectacular photography, of course, and as in-depth an exploration of the people and culture where the Woodruffs visit that can be done in a 39-minute show. But the key to this series will be the changing relationship between Bob and his son. ... That bond, and the resetting of their relationship where they each see the other more as peers, will be the key to setting the 6-episode first season apart from similar series.

Fear City: New York Vs. The Mafia may not be the most revealing docuseries, but the interview subjects and the subject matter are still fascinating enough to give this well-worn topic a revisit.

This is a fun, romantic look at life on the spectrum that will hopefully shatter some stereotypes.

his series wins when it feels as though we, the audience watching via Netflix, are getting secret insider tips about the coolest most authentic places to check out, like a local whispered it to us. it doesn’t feel exploitative at all or that it’s trying to be a cool Instagram post. Street Food: Latin America isn’t quite changing the game when it comes to food or travel or culture shows, but it’s a pretty solid contribution that will leave you feeling hungry and educated at the same time.

Cursed works when it sticks to Nimue and Arthur, and doesn’t when it comes to just about anything else. But it still may be worth watching for those who want to scratch their fantasy itch.

Yes, it’s an infomercial and yes, the NBCU ads during the “commercial breaks” are pure puffery. But there are more than enough funny moments to keep you watching. Just keep your finger poised over that one-minute skip button; you’ll need it.

United We Fall has all the right pieces. ... But those pieces just don’t coalesce into a show that rises above its tired premise.

Indian Matchmaking isn’t too much different than other matchmaking and dating shows, except it brings thousands of years of tradition into the mix, and there’s a much better chance that the matches that are made at the end of the season will last.

The conspiracy aspects of The Capture are intriguing enough to keep us watching. We just hope we don’t get manipulated as much as we did during the first episode.

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.

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.

Despite its occasional tonal inconsistency, Japan Sinks: 2020 is a frequent visual wonder.

It’s tough to highlight who’s the best interview — Wheaton, Bridges, Jovovich, Thomas, Wood and Wilson are all insightful and forthcoming. ... We should all know by now that Hollywood glamour is a phony facade. Showbiz Kids digs deeper into that truism, Winter piecing together a collage of stories adding up to one big cautionary tale.

The Nest is twisty enough to keep our interest, but we just wish the first episode didn’t have so many eye-rolling coincidences.

P-Valley is a series that has a lot to say from a perspective that hasn’t gotten much of a voice on prestige TV to this point. As the ensemble meshes, it’ll be interesting to see how this alternative family operates.

The show looks gorgeous and can stand side-by-side with the other nature docs on Netflix. The lessons it teaches are also worth learning. It’s actually not hard to imagine Down to Earth becoming part of a very hip, very millennial high school teacher’s curriculum when school starts back up in the fall.

Some of Little Voice‘s saccharine might get you in a grumpy mood, but Bareilles’ music and O’Grady’s performance will help with alleviate those grumpies pretty quickly.

The series is not only entertaining and admirable but also an important look at what so many women, even those at the very top of their game in the entertainment industry, have to go through and pretend it’s all good when it very clearly is not.

It’s very silly, very extreme, and very entertaining. But unlike Regular Show, Close Enough consistently channels its random energy and silly characters to make a bigger, more interesting point.

We were so intrigued by how the individual challenges and the team challenges would work, that we played both episodes back to back, and was invested in both. ... Even though there is more at stake with the individual challenges, the team challenges are the more intriguing part of each episode, because this is where the interpersonal relationships come into play.

Stateless has the pedigree and the performances to match its prestige drama ambitions. But the first episode suffers from tonal mismatches and doesn’t bring the stories together in a satisfying enough way to make us automatically want to watch more.

We wish that the first episode went into more details about the boys’ accusations and the trial that ensued. Otherwise, it was a lot of the same song being sung, that this kid couldn’t possibly have done what he was accused of doing; it made for a particularly slow-moving first episode.

If you’re a fan of the JU-ON or The Grudge franchises, JU-ON: Origins will help fill in some blanks with a well-drawn story and interesting characters. But even if you’re not, the stories told in this series will be intriguing to any horror fan.

The mysteries this new version discusses are fascinating and the episodes are well-researched with good storytelling. We just wish they named it something else.

Netflix’s new version of The Baby-Sitters Club is a total triumph. It’s sweet, funny, hopeful, but most of all, encouraging. The message to girls, young and old, is that we are stronger together. The Baby-Sitters Club might be a pitch perfect show for kids and tweens, but it’s sure to become a feel-good obsession for grown women and men alike. It’s that good.

Warrior Nun is the rare pulpy fantasy show that knows when to lean into its silly side and when to slow down and get serious. That makes it incredibly addictive for a specific kind of action fan.

If you’re looking for light-hearted laughs, this will do the trick. But SKIP IT if you want something better. Dig into Lopez’s back catalog on HBO Max for harder-hitting material, or for a fresher perspective from a younger generation, go with Cristela Alonzo’s Lower Classy on Netflix or Jesus Trejo’s Stay At Home Son, which just came out a month ago on Showtime.

The first episode of Adventure Time: Distant Lands is able to add to this series without once trivializing its legacy. “BMO” proves that there are more stories to tell from the Land of Ooo, and we can trust Pendleton Ward to deliver even more heartwarming tales of adventure and friendship.

HBO’s six-part I’ll Be Gone in the Dark isn’t merely an examination of one of most devastating and least understood criminals in modern history. It’s a heartfelt deep dive into the extraordinary everyday woman who led to his capture.

Into The Unknown: Making Frozen 2 doesn’t suffer from the usual Disney self-promotional schtick that infiltrates most of the Disney+ BTS docuseries we’ve seen, it’s still a very informative series that shows that even the best animated features run into issues and problems that need to be overcome.

If you liked Season 2 of Search Party then Season 3 is more of the same. If you were shocked by the show’s dark turn at the end of the first season, though, don’t expect the show to go back to that season’s tone.

Crazy Delicious is your new cooking show obsession.

It made me laugh. And that kind of involuntary giggle that you can’t help, it’s just your body’s way of reacting, not a polite, calculated chuckle at any point. It’s not light, easy viewing by any means, but this chaotic special is a respite from the other kind of chaos that is 2020 and anything that provides a laugh these days is worth watching.

Matthew Rhys’ powerful performance is the main reason to watch this reboot of Perry Mason, but the mystery is intriguing enough to justify watching all of the show’s fine performances.

Taste The Nation With Padma Lakshmi won’t make anyone forget about Bourdain and his various shows, but it’s well-shot, Lakshmi is a warm and knowledgeable host, and the food she discovers is both comforting and surprising.

It’s not supposed to be a program that looks expertly crafted, or even consistent in terms of the quality of comedy. But we were surprised at how much we enjoyed most of the videos shown, and we were shocked at how much we actually laughed.

Syfy Wire’s The Great Debate is one of those shows that’s funny, moves quickly, and helps give you something light to watch in between all the heavy stuff that’s going on these days. And any place that mentions Bad Dudes and Burgertime (thanks, Brian Posehn, for the second item) is aces in our book.

Even Chappelle admits near the end: “This is not funny at all.” But it needed to be said. And this could only be said by Chappelle.

Legendary feels completely immersive. Everywhere you look, it’s a ball. And when Legendary gets into the competition gig, it slays. The performances in the first episode are, well, legendary. ... The show’s called Legendary for a reason.

The challenges themselves are all standard-grade challenges, some more sophisticated than others, and Khare is a fine host. ... Karma’s contestants are a group of diverse, intelligent, and kind kids who will quickly realize that the kinder they are to each other, the farther they’ll go.

Skip it, unless you have a serious itch for some foliage-porn.

This show is equally as fun as its bright young cast, and it depicts enough of a twist on the classic coming out story that you’ll want to watch more.

The first couple of seasons of [Last Comic Standing] packed its contestants into a house to live together, and everything that happened in the house was far funnier than the contrived comedy competitions with live studio audiences. LOL: Australia does just that, and it’ll make you LOL IRL.

Every character is operating on a different level of vulgarity. ... Skip it, unless you’re in 8th grade and somehow haven’t already heard these jokes before.

If you’re as fascinated with Wood’s life and career as we are, Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind will be a font of information you may not have already known about. But it certainly isn’t a place to get the definitive account of her death, because even those most intimately involved with her have no idea what happened.

Watching Jerry Before Seinfeld may feel more comforting in this moment than watching 23 Hours To Kill. But whether you think he’s great or he sucks, well, you’re not far off from the truth, either way.

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.

It helps that Favreau is heavily involved in this series, because it was his initial vision that brought this series to fruition, and his acting chops help him move the interviews along with a funny line or keen observation. The first episode is also helped by the fact that the season’s directors are such a dynamic bunch.

We’d love to see Lanigan search for props from films that aren’t in the vast Disney library, but Prop Culture is on Disney+, so we have to live with the show we get. And his enthusiasm and knowledge of these props shows through in every scene of the first episode.

Daniels has succeeded to make the afterlife look like hell in Upload, even if it’s a hell with colorful foliage. And that’s just the kind of show we want to see right about now. But we also know he knows how to build a funny ensemble we’ll care about, and he’s on the way to doing that after the first episode.

The story is fairly coherent from beginning to end, even if you make some choices that mean you don’t get to the “winning” solution. But as with the series it came from, we just wish some of the jokes whizzing by our heads were a wee bit funnier instead of just thrown out there to see what lands.

As with most docuseries of this type, your enjoyment of Trial By Media will vary from episode to episode, but will also vary with how much you know and remember about a particular episode’s case. But what Toobin and Brill are trying to accomplish is noble.

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.

Too much of this hour, though, covers territory any comedian, Asian-American or otherwise, could crack wise about. ... Yang is no Thomas Middleditch or Kumail Nanjiani or even T.J. Miller.

Yes, Bad Mothers feels like a bit of a rehash of the first season of Desperate Housewives, including a murder mystery. But the sharp dialogue and excellent cast make the show a fun watch, despite the fact that it doesn’t quite feel fresh.

Solar Opposites is weird enough in its own unique way to separate it from all the other animated comedies out there, and its anarchic vibe might be just the ridiculous distraction you’re looking for right now.

There’s naturalistic acting, and then there’s mumbling. And the first episode had a lot of mumbling, especially from André Holland. The Eddy is a pretentious mess of a show, and even the expert music that is interspersed through the first episode isn’t enough to save it. In fact, it makes things worse.

It feels that Trying is going to try (pun intended) to get the emotional wringer of the adoption process right instead of falling back on TV cliches about it. It also helps that Smith and Spall play a couple that are great together and you want to see get what they’ve been hoping for.

The improvised scenes are where the show crackles with energy, even if old farts like us can’t understand 100% of the skaters’ lingo. ... Also, the energy among the five stars is palpable, given the history that they’ve had in the past few years. When the group splits up, things get more stilted.

Oswalt’s comedy will put you at ease for an hour.

Dead Still‘s mystery is just in its beginning stages in the first episode, but the chemistry between the three leads is readily apparent, and that will fuel the rest of the first season.

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.

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.

The drama has everything to keep viewers invested, turned on, and watching, potentially even in one sitting. It’s a fun, steamy escape and who would dare pass up one of those?

The Great tries to be irreverent and funny but fails on both accounts. In fact, some of what passes for jokes on this show is downright painful to watch because it’s so dark and mean-spirited.

The mystery of Blood & Water is interesting enough to keep us watching, but the performances of Qamata and Ngema just make the show that much better.

If you’re in the mood for a lighthearted giggle, this is not the special for that and Netflix is packed with dozens of others that do provide this service. It didn’t make me laugh and I believe the intention was to do so, even more than her previous special.

Despite the fact that there are laughs to be had on Don’t, the game play is far too confusing and it feels like it’s being treated like a secondary aspect of what’s supposed to be a game show.

This show honors them and their hard work and you can’t help but feel it in your heart.

Michaela Coel is a riveting actor, and talented writer and both come to the fore in I May Destroy You. We’re looking forward to seeing how she deals with the issues of consent and sexual assault on the series, all the while doing so with a sardonic bent that this topic usually doesn’t receive. The balance she tries to achieve will be fascinating to watch.

The most memorable bits all take place onstage.

There’s enough action in Trackers to keep you interested. But the first episode is disjointed and confusing, and you may not have the patience to stay with the show as the stories start to come together.

Anyone, from kids to senior citizens, could benefit from hearing more messages right now like Brillon’s.

Dear… doesn’t give us the most in-depth biographies of its subjects. But the letter writers who were influenced by the subject are this show’s killer app, and make whichever episodes interest you worth watching.

Amanda Peet’s performance is more than enough to put Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story on a season pass. But Broderick’s story is an intriguing one, and it looks like it’ll be told in a way that will show that some of her simmering rage didn’t just come out of the blue.

The lack of talking heads does get a tad monotonous, as does the constant identification of each voice speaking, but it’s a small price to pay for the fascinating stories that were collected from the archival interviews. Laurel Canyon really evokes the magic of the late ’60s and early ’70s and the area that generated so much fantastic music.

Quiz isn’t exactly a heavy lift for the viewer; it’s only 3 parts — though probably would be better as 2 — and is about a scandal that has more silly elements (a lot of coughing, for instance) than serious ones.

After one episode, the jury’s still out on whether Season 2 will live up to Season 1’s story and style. But Monáe is definitely good enough to carry the season, and the story may end up going in unexpected directions.

Stargirl is a fun ride, and the performances by Bassinger and Wilson make the first episode keep a lively pace.

The show's aesthetic is somewhat voyeuristic, but not in a bad way.

The performances of both the young and middle-aged versions of the main characters in The Woods are a good reason to keep watching. But the mystery is just complex and intriguing enough to justify watching those performances.

Just lighthearted enough to not set off a panic attack.

The Genetic Detective succeeds because Moore is charming as hell and the process she uses to solve these cases are fascinating.

We wish that the multi-level humor of the original series was here, rather than just a series of bug eye gags and heavy items falling on the characters.

It's a fun extension of the 'Sesame Street' brand and a good way for kids to get into the fun that a talk show format can be.

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

Your level of engagement with the series will depend entirely on how easily you get queasy.

Central Park is funny and warm, and has songs that will stick in your head.

This workplace comedy feels more silly than sharp.

'Barkskins' is well-acted and looks fantastic, but it's too confusing at the start

Ultimate Tag is the perfect kind of show to keep your mind off being stuck at home.

Parenthood definitely changes you, and we’re curious to see if the male contestants in Labor Of Love are truly ready for the responsibility. We just wish the format weren’t so damned skeevy.

The Big Fib gets a whole lot of things right when it comes to the family game show genre.

Council of Dads isn’t as ridiculous as some of the other This Is Us rip-offs we’ve seen in the past few years, but its also not all that good of a show, either.

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

Never Have I Ever is just about as perfect of a teen TV comedy as you can get.

It’s a well-done drama that will keep you guessing and entertained and thinking about it even when you’re not watching it.

Penny Dreadful: City Of Angels tells a compelling story filled with fine performances.