The Artful Dodger doesn’t try to replicate the vibe of Oliver Twist. It has its own vibe, one that moves quickly, is often funny, and is mostly entertaining to watch.

Slow Horses is sharply written at every twist and turn. Forceful, funny, and conspiratorial, it’s constantly finding new ways into spy thriller dynamics while showcasing the terrific work of its cast and letting Gary Oldman just completely go off as the jaded, aged spy at its center.

Steeltown Murders has the potential to be a really intriguing mystery that spans 30 years, as long as the scenes from the Seventies flow well into the scenes from the Aughties and vice versa.

Faraway Downs doesn't entirely fix the criticism of white saviorism that Australia received. That would’ve been an impossible feat given Lady Sarah's character. That said, the series spends more time with the Aboriginal characters and expands on their origin story and aspirations, rather than casting them to the wayside. Overall, the series transforms the lukewarm drama into the grand epic that Luhrmann originally set out to make.

You’re better off watching Squid Game again than watching the cynical, depressing mess that is Squid Game: The Challenge.

Waddingham knows what her fans – and Ted Lasso fans – want, and she delivers.

By scaling down the scope of the Season 5 story, at least to start Noah Hawley has brought Fargo back to the show that we enjoyed so much during its first two seasons.

Julia continues to tell the story of Julia Child’s rise to pop culture ubiquity in a way that’s funny and warm, with an ensemble of well-written characters whose stories we also want to follow.

If you don’t care about the MonsterVerse movies, this show probably won’t change your mind. However, if you’re into Godzilla, Kong, or the various Titans who square off against them, Monarch is a lot of fun.

The end of the first episode of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is bound to turn off some viewers, but just take a deep breath and proceed. By the halfway point, your anger and confusion will fully dissipate as the story plays on and divulges new findings about the beloved characters. If you venture into this series with an open mind, you’ll love it. The show has all the charm, humor, and action of its source material!

If the writing on The Crown Season 6 Part 1 falls a bit short where it counts the most, the cast at least delivers the goods. Imelda Staunton is still the most ineffectual Queen Elizabeth II the show’s produced, but she’s no longer in the spotlight, so it’s fine. Instead, The Crown Season 6 Part 1 belongs to Princess Diana and Elizabeth Debicki.

A Murder at the End of the World is here for your wintertime whodunit watching, with a terrific lead performance from Emma Corrin, a strong cast throughout – while they’re still living, anyway! – and layers of forward-looking tech and classic mystery elements to pick at and peel.

We are always tempted to say that any new NCIS will appeal to fans of the franchise, but we’re just not sure about NCIS: Sydney. There’s snippets of hope here and there, but the overall setup seems clumsy, and much of the dialogue is just as clumsy as the setup.

Stream it, all the way to Mars and back. For All Mankind continues to audaciously rewrite history in season four. It’s got a handful of legacy characters with over thirty years of baggage to process, as well as new frontiers of the continuing space race to explore with both its sharp writing and stunning production design.

Big Mouth Season 7 is still treading the same worn-out waters as it has across the rest of its runtime, and the only positive thing that can really be said here is that next season is its final set of episodes.

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.

The chemistry between Dyer and Brammall is the key to Colin From Accounts; they show how these two comically flawed people can foster a relationship, even if the only thing they have in common is a disabled dog neither of them owns.

There feels like there’s more substance to Escaping Twin Flames than Desperately Seeking Soulmate, or at the very least more testimonials to what Twin Flames Universe was all about and exactly what Jeff and Shaleia Ayan’s grift really was.

The result is a totally unvarnished meta meditation on his journey. And from the euphoria of instant stardom to all of the adversity, hits and misses that came after, it becomes much more of a personal document than just another celebrity documentary.

The Buccaneers is entertaining enough, but just doesn’t feel like it’s going to go much deeper than the Yanks vs. Brits trope we see throughout the first episode.

Lawmen: Bass Reeves benefits from a sturdy performance by David Oyelowo at its center, effectively strikes the balance between tough talk, gunplay, and sentiment typical of a Tyler Sherdian production, and offers some perspective on a formative era of US history.

Even if Pluto strikes some sci-fi watchers as a bit derivative or self-serious, animation fans should appreciate its designs, fluidity, and invention. This is a great-looking show, and effective testimony for how sometimes fantastical stories are better-served by animation rather than live-action.

Fans of Fielder’s comic work might struggle to find familiar laughs in The Curse, but the series is a deftly woven tapestry of tension. At its best, The Curse‘s surrealist approach edges close to the creative heights of another Showtime series, Twin Peaks: The Return. At its worst, the social satire feels a bit too on the nose, especially on the heels of an “Eat the Rich” cinematic boom.

The second season looks like it’ll be more complex than the first, but we’re confident that the second season will be as cohesive as the first.

Hidden Assets is all about the conspiracy at the center of the first season, and we see signs from the first moments that it'll be twisty and keep our interest, even if there isn't a ton of character development.

Despite a squinchy mystery at the center of the first episode, the overarching story of Signora Volpe, with a good performance from Emilia Fox, is enough to keep us watching.

Despite Kenneth Branagh’s brilliant transformation into Boris Johnson, This England takes too much time rehashing the beginnings of the response to COVID-19 as if they were 20 years ago instead of something that, even though it was almost four years ago, still feels like it happened yesterday to most of us.

Black Cake works best when it concentrates on how Covey became Eleanor and managed to make a life for herself despite the secrets she kept. The impact of those secrets on the present day feel like more of a punctuation on the story instead of part of the story itself.