It’s not surprising that Sherman-Palladino’s dialogue sparkles, but she also effectively captures the time period, injecting just the right amount of quirkiness into the historical context. The set design, costumes and visually inventive direction (often from the creator herself) lavish as much attention on Midge’s home life as her professional aspirations, filling both with rich, rewarding detail. Marvelous is an understatement.

It takes a little too long for the show’s eight-episode first season to bring its focus to the porn industry, and the middle episodes in particular are dominated by less compelling, more conventional storylines. But even the more thinly sketched characters are engaging to watch, and Simon and his collaborators effectively re-create the NYC of the past, closely enough that you can feel the grit.

After going a bit overboard on the ’80s signifiers in the first episode, the show dials things back in subsequent episodes, but it’s still full of gloriously terrible fashions and endearingly trashy pop culture.

Tale is paced maddeningly slowly (the result of taking 10 hourlong episodes to adapt a novel that was made into a single feature film in 1990) and too often belabors its most dramatic and intense moments. Even so, those moments are frequently powerful, thanks to Moss’ mesmerizing performance and a concept that is both timely and frighteningly timeless.

Ray, Yount and Vaughn may take a little time to perfect the chemistry that the various original stars (most of whom worked together for many years) had, but they’re still consistently funny, and that’s all that really matters. The show still has the same joke-a-minute pace, so that any gags that fall flat (or references that fly over viewers’ heads) are quickly forgotten by the next laugh.

The show could turn out to be soapy or campy, but instead it demonstrates the power and impact of family, community and friendship, how those bonds are just as meaningful and just as dramatic as any grand political or criminal enterprise. It doesn’t need dragons or mobsters or robots to stand as HBO’s best drama in years.

The Netflix show is smartly scripted, boasts some feature film-worthy production design and has a terrific ensemble cast that includes Patrick Warburton as kindly narrator Lemony Snicket and Neil Patrick Harris in prime scenery-chewing form as the villainous Count Olaf.

Sherman-Palladino and company meet expectations by positioning familiarity as a jumping-off point rather than an end goal. As a result, A Year in the Life proves--in true Gilmore fashion--that the most challenging do-overs often offer the greatest rewards.

TBS is airing the entire 10-episode season in a weeklong binge, which means the choppy plotting is easy to overlook as long as the characters remain painfully funny to watch--which they do, right up to the horrifying final laugh.

The character dynamics are genuine and refreshing and also quite funny; although Insecure features its share of angst from its main characters, it never loses sight of the comedy, which often comes from the way that Issa and Molly feel slightly out of place among all of their supposed peer groups. The show stumbles when it focuses on a love triangle.

Writer David Farr and director Susanne Bier make the undercover work and the spy-agency infighting equally riveting, sustaining the suspense all the way to the inevitable (if slightly disappointing) end.

The Expanse manages to take familiar sci-fi elements and synthesize them into something that looks and feels distinctive.

Like Louie, Master of None sometimes seems a bit scattered, and not everything Ansari tries works.

Campbell certainly has the wit and charisma to make Ash a welcome weekly TV presence, but without Raimi, he might have to carry the show on his own. For now, at least, he seems to be up to the task.

All of that balancing might collapse over the course of an entire season, but in its first episode, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is clever, winning and unique, making it the most promising new show of a fairly dismal fall TV season.

The case may not necessarily be new or groundbreaking, but it is worth presenting, and Going Clear gets it out there in a direct, engaging way that will leave viewers eager to learn more.

Better Call Saul isn’t to ascend to Breaking Bad’s place in pop-culture history, but as a guilty pleasure for those who miss Heisenberg and the gang, it succeeds on just about every level.

TV audiences may not have known they needed a small-screen equivalent of Spamalot--and the network may not really know what to do with it--but Galavant turns out to be completely winning in all its cheesy glory.