Matthew Macfadyen is quite good as the somewhat vapid, wholly incompetent John Stonehouse. The rest of Stonehouse feels like it’s a bit light and trivial, but it wisely puts Macfadyen front and center in just about every scene.

The Drowning has some aspects that are a little on the unbelievable side, but for the most part it’s a well-written, well-acted psychological mystery.

The Serpent Queen has just enough irreverence to make what could have been a boring period story a lot more interesting, emphasizing Catherine de’ Medici’s cunning over being prim and proper.

When MaryLand concentrates on Becca and Rosaline re-bonding while seeking answers about their mother, the series works the best, thanks the performances from Jones and Best. The rest of the stories surrounding the sisters feel like filler that won’t really have much to do with the general direction of the series.

While the near-future shown in Tomorrow + I might be a little dystopian, it’s far from bleak, and that little sliver of hope is always welcome in a show like this.

The Lake is a coming-of-age show that isn’t trying to be for kids, but is also trying to tell a multi-layered story with smart, character-driven jokes, which it succeeds to do most of the time.

Like its parent show, The Rookie: Feds is watchable because of its star and very little else. But Nash-Betts is just so damn watchable that you’ll enjoy the series despite any reservations you may have.

While the beginning of The Sandman‘s final season is a bit of a exposition-crammed slog, it does show Dream entering a story that feels like it’ll have a lot of possibilities.

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.

At least trying to offer a glimmer of humanity beyond all of the government agency carrying on and mysterious international evildoing.

Claim To Fame isn’t high art, but it’s fun to guess along with the housemates, even if you can Google your guesses and find out who the housemates are before they’re revealed on the show.

This new version of A League Of Their Own explores territory that the original movie didn’t even attempt to explore. Whether that makes the series a coherent whole is yet to be seen. But it certainly is off to a good start.

More often than not, that structure comes off stiff and clunky rather than genuine and flowing. ... That’s not to say that the dialogue from Gaby Chiappe, who adapted Cecil Day-Lewis’ novel (though seems to change quite a bit, including Frances’ gender) isn’t sharp. It’s what we enjoyed about the first episode the most, including Jumbo’s and Howle’s performances (Harris doesn’t appear until Episode 2). But we just wish Frances’ way to George didn’t look so damned easy.

While there are a lot of absurd elements in The Gardener, the elements are grounded enough in reality to make them seem plausible. And the more plausible this show seems, the better it will be.

No one is going to mistake Ransom Canyon for prestige television. But it’s certainly a soapy, guilty pleasure, anchored by performances from Duhamel and Kelly that make you want to see both of their characters get what they want, which is each other.

While 4400 may need to smooth down some of its more noticeable tone hiccups, it has set up a very interesting mystery with undertones of issues that are very relevant to 2021.

All the Sharks has the potential to bring David Attenborough fans and competitive reality TV connoisseurs together for the first time in history.

Shallcross brings an endearing, almost wholesome approachability to the series that makes you want to see how things turn out for him and his group.

While the mystery in C.B. Strike: The Ink Black Heart is a bit slowly-paced, we do appreciate the elbow room the writers have to explore the lives and relationships of Strike, Robin and the other series regulars.

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.

Watchable, despite all of the ridiculousness. ... We’re going to give Reasonable Doubt a chance because Emayatzy Corinealdi is a sexy force to be reckoned with as Jax, and her cloudy ethics and taste in men is what gives some of the silliness in the series some depth.

While Berlin doesn’t bring anything new to the heist genre, the charm of Alonzo as Berlin makes the prequel worth watching for both fans of Money Heist and newcomers to the franchise.

The central mystery of Boglands is definitely intriguing enough to keep viewers interested, but we liked the fact that the characters’ personalities are solidly established before the investigation gets started.

The reason why Last Call: When A Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York is watchable is that it’s not just about a bunch of related murders, but about just how uphill of a climb the LGBTQIA+ community had in New York and elsewhere during a time that wasn’t all that long ago.

If The Anarchists were just about the movement itself, it would be boring and enraging. But because it’s about how the movement got infiltrated by people who made things increasingly chaotic and violent, we’re ready to see where the rest of the series goes.

Fallout does a good job drawing viewers into its expansive world without needing a ton of exposition to explain what’s going on. It helps that the show is visually stunning and filled with fine performances by Goggins, Purnell and others.

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.

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story finds room to tell more complex tales of courtship, marriage, and forbidden love than the core series does. It’s the soapier aspect of Queen Charlotte that I found the most interesting, even if it took a while for all the pieces of the drama to fall into place.