If you don’t love the shtick, you definitely won’t love the show. But if you stick with all three episodes, you’ll absorb the entire spectrum of the Paris and Nicole experience: the humor, the friendship, the ineptitude that masks actual professional experience and an understanding of The Biz. The end result actually does feel like a celebration of their friendship.

Can the show be hagiographic at times, and a bit pretentious at others? Sure. .... But the episodes’ directors and the show’s producers do make sure they provide a complete picture of the episode’s featured chef.

We’re happy to see Phineas And Ferb back with new adventures, and after ten years away, it’s as fun and creative as ever.

Season 2 looks to be another successful season of original, entertaining, thought-provoking animation and toe-tapping tunes from the brilliant brain of Vivienne Medrano.

We want the show to be compelling and relatively self-contained so “civilians” like us don’t have to do extensive research to crack the show’s code. The Mighty Nein succeeds in that regard, for the most part, though there were times during the first episode where we were scratching our heads about who was who and what was what.

The second season of Deadloch continues to be a darkly funny series with a fun pair of mismatched detectives who strangely work very well together.

You don’t have to be a gamer to enjoy Players, even though the inside references will likely give gamers a smile. It’s a classic story about the veteran being displaced by an overconfident rookie, and it’s one that’s executed well.

The final season of The Comeback is as funny and self-aware as the first two seasons, mainly because Kudrow continues to make Valerie Cherish one of the least self-aware characters on television.

The direction of Gemstones, together with its whip-smart editing and consistently top tier music cues, helps push the series toward darkness as much as the unscrupulous behavior by its characters. It also has its garish heart revealed in riotous costuming, bizarre framing – get a load of the gleaming white spires and towers of the gilded Zion’s Landing – and craven decision making, which only makes the world it’s built for itself come even more weirdly to life.

Young Love is funny and heartwarming, and it doesn’t try to do more than show a young family trying their best to build their lives together, despite setbacks.

The American Revolution is yet another example of how Ken Burns and his collaborators take what we already know about a historic event and, through meticulous research and extensive interviews with historians, goes really deep into the topic in an entertaining way.

I loved it. ... The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special delivers in every single way.

Rap Sh!t suffers a bit from some broad gags and the phone-centric gimmickry we cited earlier, but at its heart is a story of two friends taking on the patriarchal world of hip hop, and that story is one we’re eager to watch.

Abbott Elementary is not only funny, but its pilot sets up a workplace family that can endure for multiple seasons.

One Piece’s storytelling compass remains pointed in the right direction.

It feels like after Silo‘s complex first season finale, Graham Yost has given viewers a chance to ease into Season 2 with the single-minded season premiere. For a series this dense in story, that’s not altogether a bad thing.

With four fantastic leads and some sharp writing, Girls5eva should give Fey-Carlock fans the fix they’ve been looking for since Kimmy Schmidt ended.

As a whole, The Staircase is a worthwhile watch, mainly for the performances by Firth, Posey and Collette. But you might get more satisfying information about the Peterson case by watching the documentary or docuseries.

While the fourth season of Dark Winds is taking a chance by going off the rez, seeing Leaphorn, Chee and Manuelito facing big changes brings interesting context to what might be normally be considered a standard police thriller case.

The Bear‘s brilliant blend of overstimulating mayhem, precision, and catharsis is a special place onto itself. Season 3 grills, sears, then professionally plates your heartstrings, right before cruelly tossing them in the trash, and no matter what becomes of Carmy’s rising Chicago hot spot in the future, the show will leave an enduring legacy on television.

Get Millie Black is fascinating not only because of its Jamaican setting but Lawrance’s performance as someone trying to figure out her place as much as she’s trying to figure out the case at hand.

If you adore these characters as much as I do, Heartstopper Season 2 is, at times, an excruciating watch. But regardless of tone and subject matter, scenes remain laced with love, and Oseman’s world is brimming with heartwarming, romantic, joyous moments that will make you melt.

Miracle Workers: End Times is probably the thinnest of the show’s four seasons, but the episodes are pretty quick and there’s more than enough funny stuff to help you binge through the episodes once they hit Max.

Fleming shares with the audience a photo of his family, with him as a child, the youngest of the flock, the only one staring into the camera. At points during the special, he's also well of where the stage cameras are. This comedian is ready for his close up.

Despite its flaws, Amend: The Fight For America is a very informative docuseries about a piece of our Constitution that is the most misunderstood and overlooked, especially given its importance to how we live our lives in the U.S.

Poker Face sometimes indulges itself in the cult of personality of its guest murderers and Charlie’s BS detector skills at the sacrifice of making a more intricate case for her to solve. But Lyonne always puts in a winning performance and the guest killers are fun to watch, which is why mystery nerds like us don’t get frustrated watching the series.

Sins Of Our Mother is an intense retelling of an ongoing story, one that has more tragedy and twists and turns than even Shakespeare could come up with. And it’s all told in a very straightforward manner because with a story this intricate, there’s no real need for bells and whistles.

Allan Scott and Scott Frank have done a fine job of adapting the long sought-after 1983 novel and exploring the phases of Beth Harmon’s life.

Star Wars: Visions has something for every Star Wars fan.

Swagger is a realistic look at how a talented kid becomes a superstar in the youth basketball world, but at least learns how to be a fully-realized person if basketball (more than likely) doesn’t make him rich.

Despite its very casual pace, The Lying Life Of Adults has an interesting family story at its core that will inform how its main character comes of age.

Justified: City Primeval will satisfy both fans of the original series and people who are just looking for a well-written, sometimes-funny cop drama to watch.

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.

Mr. Loverman is a tour de force for Lennie James, but it’s also an affecting story of a man who struggles to be his true self and knows what the consequences are if he comes out at his advanced age.

The league itself exists in the shadow of its founder. Determining whether that’s forever is another tenet central to Heels, and that gives all of the characters surrounding Jack and Ace the space they need to flourish. But beyond the trials of family, what Heels is most adept at exploring is the dao of professional wrestling itself.

Yes, seeing Carol’s elderly parents in the buff, doing the things that throuples do with their burly aide Michael, is funny. But it’s also poignant; even at their advanced age, Carol’s parents are doing the things they never got to do simply because it’s everyone’s last chance. But Carol’s desire for maintaining her routine makes us like her all the more.

How To Get To Heaven From Belfast is a sharply funny examination of how friendships change over time as well as a pretty darn good mystery.

We Are: The Brooklyn Saints is designed to be heartwarming and inspirational, and Valdez hits the mark on both.

Russian Doll Season 2 is good, but it’s not quite as great as Russian Doll Season 1. This new season gets messy with its wild narrative swings and lazy with its logic.

While Agents of Chaos may not come to any concrete conclusions about Russian interference in the 2016 election, it makes a pretty damning case that the Russians definitely had some influence, and that US intelligence officials were slow on the uptake in fighting it.

Lovecraft Country is a pulpy treat: sexy, scary, and featuring a poignant examination of some of the true horrors in American society.

If you’re willing to put in the effort, Fleishman Is in Trouble is a rewarding, intentionally maddening, often sweet experience that asks you to reexamine your own relationship with nostalgia. But in order to get to those depths, you need to watch more than a couple of episodes.

Like the first season, The Vow Part II moves quickly, even as it dives deeper into the people who were and still are loyal to Keith Reinere, finding out their reasoning, motivation and rationalizations. Those conversations, paired with the information from the trial, will make for an interesting second season.

Ren Faire works not only because it’s dramatic and stylish, but also because it’s a docuseries about some pretty interesting characters in a tension-filled situation.

Season 5 of Harley Quinn keeps the hilarity coming at a rapid-fire clip, concocts a whole host of new misadventures for its main duo – this time with Metropolis under threat – and expands on and strengthens Harley and Ivy’s love story in ways well worth shipping.

Gary does a good job of reminding fans of The Bear why the show was so compelling when it first blasted onto our screens, and we hope it’s a harbinger of a good final season.

Landscapers not only benefits from great performances by Colman and Thewlis, but it’s a dark comedy that’s actually howlingly funny in between all of the darkness. That balance is very difficult to achieve.

Only Murders In The Building, unlike the true crime podcasts the show satirizes, doesn’t go into a sophomore slump after a great first season. Now that its comic rhythms are well-established, it actually feels like the show may be even better in Season 2.

A little zany and a lot of heart, the show has enough well-timed jokes to keep you entertained and asking for the next episode.

In season two, he’s got backup in the form of some also lethal old friends, as well as another personal score to settle. This series understands what it does best, and honors its source material by casting the correct version of its main character.

While some aspects of Everyone Else Burns might get repetitive in a hurry, there is more than enough stories revolving around the Lewises trying to live in the world while prepping for Doomsday to make for a pretty funny show with well-rounded characters.

Slow Horses continues to be fun to watch because of Oldman’s crusty performance and the agents at Slough House working together so well despite not exactly being friends. It’s a chemistry that works for this show, and can sustain it for a number of seasons beyond this one.

Worn Stories is definitely one of the more unusual docuseries you’ll stream this year. But it’s also warm, personal and heartfelt.

A Thousand Blows does a good job of tying its stories together well, and tries to keep the action going in the process.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles has serious moments, but it’s a show that doesn’t try to take itself too seriously, and that sense of fun is going to make Margo’s journey to provide for her son very watchable.

The movie is about two percent positive, 98 percent terrifying.

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.

Gorgeously unsettling tour de force. ... Dead Ringers is an incredible work of art, full of knotty conversations about the give and take of society at all levels. It takes an unapologetically feminine look at the politics, science, and emotion of maternity in the modern medical era. But more than anything else, it’s a brilliant showcase for one Rachel Weisz, who is operating at the top of her game.

This new season is exactly what you want from What We Do in the Shadows, but even better.

While Beyond The Gates isn’t reinventing the daytime soap formula, just the idea that we’re being introduced to a new set of characters, and we’re getting a soap that features and affluent and powerful Black family, is more than enough to get us to keep watching.

Trial 4 takes some time to get going, and the first episode ironically shows very little of Sean Ellis, it’s still a compelling story of corruption and the determination of a man to clear his name.

Despite our reservations on the style choices by Dimmock, the story of Captive Audience is compelling, and the twist that involves Cary is what has us most intrigued.

This special installment of Euphoria slows things down and presents a truly gutting character study and a breathtaking performance from Hunter Schafer.

While you may know the story of the Jonestown massacre, Cult Massacre: One Day In Jonestown brings it to life in a new way, with lots of vivid recollections by people who were there.

Not every athlete is worthy of a documentary, but Simone Biles isn’t just any athlete. Simone Biles: Rising is a well-crafted document of one of the best to ever do it.

We enjoyed Penelope because Megan Stott’s performance is a clinic in solo acting, and we appreciate the story’s fantasy aspects. But those nagging questions that pop into our heads while watching it just don’t go away.

Taylor Swift: The End of an Era is a nice illumination into the singer-songwriter’s hugely-scaled professional operation and her personal, sometimes emotional world.

Black Doves isn’t going to blow you away with some revolutionary spy story. But the story is intriguing enough, and is improved by the chemistry between Knightley and Whishaw, with a big assist from Lancashire.

Macdonald managed to be somehow timeless, outdated, and very much of his time, all at the same time.

This is the triumphant return to the world of Adventure Time fans have been waiting for, and it sets the stage for one of the most interesting concepts the show has seen in some time. Whether you’re holding out to see where your favorite heroes are in this timeline or how things will shake out for our new heroines, it’s well worth settling into every week as it hits Max.

I was astonished by how much I liked Keeping Faith. Sometimes it feels like we’ve seen it all in the British crime drama genre, and it’s true, Keeping Faith does share a lot in common with some other shows. The good news, though, is that it’s specifically like Big Little Lies crossed with Broadchurch.

Yellowjackets does a good job at tackling three genres at once. It’s a thriller, a coming of age story and a survival story, and all of it is presented in a way that makes us want to see more.

Slip is certainly a tour de force for Zoe Lister-Jones, but it’s also funny and touching, and it may have a more positive message about marriage and long-term relationships than it seems to have at first blush.

If I have one criticism to lob at Netflix’s Pokémon Concierge, it’s that the first season is too damn short. Just as Haru acclimates to her new role, the first season is over! There’s literally only four episodes of Pokémon Concierge and they all clock in at about 15 minutes in length. On the one hand, that makes the series a powerfully potent cocktail of sweetness. On the other, it leaves you desperate for more.

Does Boarders say anything new? That’s yet to be seen. But even if it treads well-worn ground, it does so in a way that’s witty and funny, with just enough drama to let the audience know that the stakes for these five teens are pretty high.

Peacemaker continues to be a funny but emotional superhero drama, with a surprisingly effective performance by Cena at its center, with a fun-to-watch ensemble around him.

Tokyo Vice is stylish, mysterious, and full of powerful acting turns that put a sharp edge on its depiction of the places where crime and violence intersect with tradition and ambition.

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.

The Long Song hinges on the relationship between July and Caroline, and both Lawrence and Atwell’s performances meet this challenge. Atwell is terrific as the benign but awful Caroline, and Lawrence matches her as the whip-smart July.

Karen Pirie is a pretty straightforward entry in the genre of British/Scottish police mysteries. But the first season presents a solid, twisty case and the title character is refreshingly young and not grizzled. Those two factors make the show an engaging watch.

Season 17 may not be the best season of the long-running comedy as it will always have its formative years, filled with now potentially cancelable jokes and bits, to look back on, but as far as modern Sunny seasons go, this is one of the funniest. .... When it’s good, it’s really good. When it struggles, you can tell they may have hit a brick wall.

Ludwig is a fun mystery series to follow, mainly because of David Mitchell’s performance as a reluctant detective who’d rather just create puzzles alone in his flat than solve murders.

Ozark only gets better by the minute. If you need us, we’ll be waiting with bated breath to see how it all comes to a close. Ozark remains one of the best dramas on TV in its fourth season, a showcase for career-best performances from Bateman, Linney, and Garner.

The first episode has more than enough twists and turns, paired with the full-of-personality members of the Heaven family, to really engage the viewer. Whether the story itself holds up over the remaining episodes is yet to be seen.

Often, the elliptical, nonlinear storytelling in Dear Mama is powerful enough to elevate it completely out of the documentary form. ... The five-part series Dear Mama feels like the Tupac Shakur documentary of record as it connects the rapper’s enduring legacy to the philosophies at work in his upbringing and presents its story in a challenging, rewarding nonlinear fashion.

The Pitt features clunky dialogue, ridiculous cliffhangers, and overly obvious messaging associated with easy primetime viewing. It also boasts propulsive filmmaking, endearing characters, and one seismic performance from star/EP Noah Wyle. Whatever ingredients The Pitt did or did not poach from E.R. come together to make a slight drama that nevertheless speaks to the existential angst of seeking or providing healthcare in 2025.

The more we see of the community around the team, one that has become bigger via the series but at its core is still what binds the residents of the town together, the more we want to watch.

While the first episode of Mrs. Davis took a bit of effort to wrap our minds around, we were hooked on it by the end, thanks in no small part to Betty Gilpin’s lead performance.

While the stories themselves are pretty fully told in their 11-15 minute runtimes, it’s definitely to the viewer’s advantage to watch all six episodes to get the full picture. ... Tales Of The Jedi brings some familiar prequel trilogy characters back to our screens, in stories that fill in more Clone Wars canon, which is always a plus.

The voice cast is excellent; Hong is especially good as the adventurous Grandpa. .... Gremlins: Secrets Of The Mogwai should be a good entry point into the Gremlins legend for kids, and it’s sophisticated enough that their parents should enjoy it, as well, even if they watched the original movie with their hands covering their eyes.

Wizards Beyond Waverly Place will give the adults who were fans of the original series the proper nostalgia hit, but it also has more than enough laughs for the kids who are entering this world for the first time.

#1 Happy Family USA is a bit uneven in the comedy department, but we’ll forgive that because whatever humor that comes out of the Hussein family’s attempts to blend into American society should be funnier than just one-off gags.

Attacking London: Hunting The 7/7 Bombers dispenses with most of the frills you see in docuseries about big events from the past and sticks to the facts. Given how devastating and scary the attacks were, that’s all that’s really needed.

Mood is one of those shows that takes you on a ride with its main character. It’s a ride we think is worth taking, but it all depends on how much you relate with Sasha and the decisions she’s making for herself.

Through the first two episodes, Ms. Marvel is a fun examination of the usual coming-of-age issues couched in Kamala’s idea that being a superhero is so much less complicated than actual life.

Once you understand the pain that’s underneath the twisted viewpoints of Deb, Josie and Billie, you realize how subversively funny Such Brave Girls really is. This show is definitely a case where the unlikable becomes likable because of how they channel their inner turmoil into really funny comedy.

Ultimately, Starstruck is a romantic comedy that understands, respects, appreciates, and celebrates the genre, all while still carving out its own unique place in the category.

Slow Horses has a bit of a generic case at its center, and it feels like some members of the Slough House team get short shrift, at least at first. But Oldman’s presence elevates our interest in just how everyone who works at Slough House actually got there.