There are still plenty of gruesome jokes to make you nearly gag, like a platoon of tampon surfers and a teenage boy’s penis that has a Long Island accent for some reason. But this time around the changes everyone is going through are a bit more abstract, for the better.

All in all, Selena: The Series is pleasantly diverting, but it feels like a missed opportunity.

It’s an intimate portrait of artists at work, and stands in stark contrast to the very public, very pop persona that has characterized Swift for much of her career.

The Saved By The Bell reboot makes the smart decision to be much more about the new kids at Bayside than about the middle-aged versions of the characters who went to the school 30 years ago. Sure, there’s going to be some self-referential jokes on the show, but Wigfield has that aspect under control so it won’t overwhelm the series.

Black Narcissus just doesn’t have enough story to latch onto and pay attention to for three hours. It’s slow and talky, and it doesn’t have any characters that you want to follow by the end of the first hour.

STREAM IT if you are just interested in seeing the dogs compete on The Pack. SKIP IT if you want to watch an interesting reality competition.

We don’t recommend watching every episode of Marvel’s 616, but there should be enough material in the eight-episode first season to keep you occupied for a few entertaining hours.

If there’s anything we need right now is something reliable to make us laugh. And Animaniacs fills that bill, just about as well as it did in the go-go ’90s.

Based on the first episode, it seems that Abrossi and Calvo can handle this back and forth pretty well, but as we expand out the universe around Cristina’s life, we’re wondering how well they’ll be able to keep track of everything.

The first episode of I Hate Suzie was an effective exercise in seeing a person’s life fall apart around them in short order. But we’re really intrigued with seeing Piper’s interpretation of how Suzie tries to put the pieces back together.

No Man’s Land presents an intriguing story of a man getting sucked into the fight against ISIS, joining forces with the little-known (at least in the West) YBJ.

Like a night plastered at your favorite bar, it may not be the most important or essential show this year. But, god, is it a blast.

His humor works best onstage and onscreen when he’s trying too hard or moving outside of his comfort zone (as the boxing sequence demonstrates), or when he’s playing against a solid foil, such as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson or Ice Cube in multiple movies. This hour only seems to prove that as a husband in his 40s, Hart truly gives zero f**ks; as a comedian and famous person, however, he still cares too much about where he stands.

We Are The Champions shows contests that you may have never heard of or seen, but even if you have seen them before, the show treats them with such reverence that you’ll become fans.

It’s not a new classic, but it’s nice that Star Wars fans finally have something watchable to put on during the holiday season.

Watching Murder on Middle Beach often feels like spying on Hamburg’s most private therapy sessions. This is thanks to Hamburg’s deeply intimate filmmaking style that refuses to turn off the camera even when he’s at his lowest moments. ... Altogether that’s where Murder on Middle Beach excels, in its intimacy.

The Reagans is obviously a partisan production, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth watching. By re-contextualizing Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the series makes a clear case for how we got to this point as a country. It didn’t just start with Donald Trump.

Oh Cook! is low-key funny, but definitely generates a number of laughs. ... But it’s surprisingly informative, due to May’s grasp of food history minutiae, and the meals he makes are surprisingly well-done.

Alex Rider is definitely an above average entry in TV’s spy genre; it takes its main character seriously and develops him enough that we can actually believe he’ll do a good job as an agent. That’s saying a lot.

This is the time to embrace absurdity and silliness, and the six episodes will fly by in under two hours. When the world feels upside down, leave it to three men from Down Under to make you feel right again.

The parts just don’t make a cohesive whole. ... Aside from Maya Rudolph’s narration, Eater’s Guide To The World doesn’t offer anything you haven’t seen in dozens of shows on Food Network and elsewhere over the past 20 or so years.

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.

They seem to be eager to share too much and show their fractured relationships as they strive for that “perfection is attainable” life. It’s an awareness previous Housewives spent multiple seasons learning, but these ladies are already savvy. This all adds up to one of the most confident starts to a Bravo series we’ve perhaps ever seen, and one that is boldly ready to bring Bravo into a new era.

The Liberator would not have worked if it wasn’t animated, due to its speechifying corniness. But the fine acting and arresting visual style takes the WWII drama from mundane to at least watchable.

The Cost of Winning is more feature-profile than hard journalism. But it’s at least a thoughtful, well-made and engaging feature-profile.

The South Westerlies is as refreshing as an ocean breeze, with a fine cast that has great chemistry from their first scenes together.

While we didn’t laugh much during the first episode of Moonbase 8, we still saw the beginnings of three interesting characters and a great chemistry among them.

The Charles and Diana soap opera shines in part because of its built-in cache, but mostly because Josh O’Connor and Emma Corrin are the season’s standouts. ... Less impressive is Gillian Anderson’s Margaret Thatcher. ... But it’s a credit to showrunner Peter Morgan and Emma Corrin herself that Princess Di doesn’t takeover the entire show. There are still standalone episodes devoted to peculiar moments for the monarchy.