The thrilling final battle is masterfully staged. It takes far too long to get there, though, with entire episodes in the middle of the series that seemingly could have been removed entirely.

The series gets off to a slow start, parceling out bits of the title character’s origin story over flashbacks in the first two episodes, and taking its time to introduce the supporting cast. But once Vincent D’Onofrio appears onscreen as Wilson Fisk, the dapper crime-boss villain known in the Marvel comic books as Kingpin, things pick up considerably, and Fisk turns out to be an even more fascinating and complex character than the protagonist.

Yacenda and Perrault create such an unexpectedly engrossing mystery that the eventual muddled resolution is a bit underwhelming, and sometimes the jokes get lost in the intricate details. Over the course of eight episodes, the show develops an impressive range of believable teenage characters, and as silly as the story can be, it’s the grounded reality of the show’s world that makes it funny.

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.

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 show sometimes goes too far with Kara’s rom-com-style personal life, but it never undermines her superheroics, and she holds her own against a nasty villain in the first episode.... It’s a promising--if a bit overly familiar--start.

From a plot standpoint, Bloodline is completely flat, using its shifting timelines as a trick to make mundane developments seem more ominous than they really are.

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.

While it doesn’t have much in common with its source material (in which the main character was part of a larger monster cosmology and ended up having to save the universe), iZombie seems to be building a distinctive little world of its own.

With a cast expanded to include tons of popular comedic performers, First Day of Camp is frequently funny, even when its jokes don’t amount to much. Fans of the movie will probably watch it over and over again, making Netflix executives very happy. Everyone else will remain baffled.

A manipulative sociopath and compulsive liar, Cunanan is a tough protagonist to invest in for nine episodes, and while Criss makes him suitably unsettling, the show too often skews more toward the sleazy excesses of a ’90s erotic thriller than the methodical refinement of something like The Talented Mr. Ripley.

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.

From a plotting standpoint, the show doesn’t always make logical sense, but it looks amazing (every penny of the huge budget is evident onscreen) and features multiple strong performances (Thandie Newton and Shannon Woodward are additional standouts).

It’s an admirable artistic exercise (an episode consisting entirely of monologues by several female characters is particularly striking) that’s almost never enjoyable to watch.

Battle Creek is unlikely to inspire the same kind of praise and devotion as Breaking Bad, but it’s an entertaining exercise in typical TV crime-solving.

When it premiered in 1998, Will & Grace was groundbreaking for its matter-of-fact depiction of the friendship between a gay man and a straight woman, even if its sitcom rhythms were already somewhat played out. Those jokes and storylines have only gotten weaker with age, and what was once a trailblazer is now left far behind.

As a TV show, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is mildly entertaining, and genre fans who aren’t familiar with the book might find parts of it enjoyable. But for all its flash, it’s missing an essential ingredient--magic.

Neither a hilarious parody nor an engrossing superhero story, this version of The Tick ends up in a dissatisfying middle ground.

Casual viewers may be a little overwhelmed by the show’s strong connections to Marvel’s movie and TV continuity.... But Marvel fans will be delighted by the way the show fills in gaps and expands on the cinematic world, and setting the show in the past means that it has entire decades of history to explore on its own.

The humor in Last Man is often more disturbing than laugh-out-loud funny, and some of it can be off-putting. But the show is more ambitious than any other current network comedy, and in just two episodes it pushes forward in bold, even reckless ways.

Both the scenery and the star of Poldark look great, but the storytelling isn’t quite as effective.

Designated Survivor opens with far too much complicated plotting, and it could easily become a morass of ridiculous developments within a few episodes. There’s promise in Sutherland’s determined, principled leader, but he’s surrounded by too many distractions.

The showbiz material is pretty thin, and much of the series takes place in dusty desert locations (shot in New Mexico), focusing on tired crime-drama devices. There’s none of the playful humor of Sonnenfeld’s film (there’s barely any humor at all), or the sly cleverness of Leonard’s crime novels (captured much more effectively in the Leonard-based Justified).

The family sitcom material is less effective, although that could develop over time, especially as the joke of a TV lawyer practicing real law inevitably loses its novelty. For now, it’s clever enough to make The Grinder one of the better new comedies of the fall season.

Any meaningful resonance with issues of financial inequality and government collusion loses out to bitchy backstabbing and awkward celebrity cameos.

Having a prominent gay character on a hip-hop drama is still a step in the right direction, though, and Empire’s characters might develop greater nuance as the show progresses. For now, it’s a trashy soap with one entertaining performance.

Gaffigan’s show was originally developed for CBS, and it has the safe, middle-of-the-road quality of most CBS sitcoms, which makes it just right for TV Land’s mild reinvention.

Although there are moments of suspense when Jake gets close to major historical events, nothing (including the obligatory twist ending) is quite enough to shake the feeling that the series is just a really, really long Twilight Zone episode.