A 2+2=4 cop show with no surprises but plenty of Wolf touches.

Manifest wants to be "This Is Us" with a taste of "Lost." Over the first episode, it manages the feat with considerable skill. A good cast sells the improbable hook by at least making it emotionally probable.

At least the first episode of this final season appears to be like all the others--gorgeous and life-affirming.

Hernandez is good in what's otherwise a pallid, uninspired facsimile of the original.

New Amsterdam isn't bad so much as it is wearily predictable. We've seen this all before, but we keep coming back for more.

The show doesn't demand to be binged, but sampled. It could air on USA just as easily. Danza, who doesn't break from type, is another steady reminder of TV past, specifically his own. Why this is on Netflix is a mystery bigger than any the Carusos will tackle this season.

Mostly--and occasionally despite itself--Maniac is just fun, at points raucously funny. ... Dive in, don't think, enjoy. You most likely will, by the way.

A sensitive, nuanced and particularly well-acted dirge.

Visually compelling with a nicely pensive music score--courtesy of Colin Stetson of Arcade Fire and Bon Iver--The First is otherwise plodding and padded.

Likable lead and cast, but Rel otherwise feels like a tepid, tame commercial network sitcom.

Initially sullen and bitter, Kidding improves as it goes along. At the very least, you get used to Jim Carrey as an ersatz Fred Rogers.

Violent, jarring, contorted and doesn't fully make the case this was the spinoff "SOA" needed or demanded.

Solid, engaging, propulsive--and a little bit too familiar.

A solid two-night opener, and the next couple of episodes are even better.

The missing pieces, arguably the most important ones, are the groundbreaking and socially relevant ones. That proficient and fluid animation aside, Disenchantment breaks no ground, offers nothing socially current other than the fact that Bean's a strong, independent woman.

Excellent portrait of a legendary band that gets to the heart of why it's endured--that tragedy notwithstanding.

A colorful "Friday" with the Disney touch, while Zuehlsdorff and Blickenstaff shine.

There's growth and evolution in the third season, but not too much and based on a glance at the first four episodes, just enough.

Fun, congenial and lighthearted but also smart and--when least expected--a little bit profound.

The precision of "Saul's" craftsmanship--writing, direction, acting, and all the way down to craft services, for all I know--makes this the best series on TV. And there really is no contest.

The show itself is a charmer--full of color and vitality, while the craftsmen and women clearly have the talent and skills to make something worth looking at. The actual crafts part, however, is rushed. You hardly ever see the detailed process of making something but instead the finished product.

Starts slow and gets better--while an excellent cast (and lead, in Holland) front a story that's a little more psychological than supernatural in the early going.

This passionless, pallid reboot is missing the key element that made the first one--tacky and tawdry as it was--succeed: Nimoy himself.

A summer pleasure. ... Kristin Chenoweth knows it's a mad, mad world out there but has the chops to make us forget about that for a little while.

Fans who hated the fifth season should mostly love the sixth, which is a return to normal, or as "normal" as "OITNB" ever gets. But the end does feel a little bit closer.

While this is the In Memoriam tribute that Williams so richly deserves and fans need, the title is misleading because that mind remains out of reach.

Other than the discovery of a murder victim and a major reveal in the closing seconds of the seventh episode, almost nothing happens in Sharp Objects. ... The narrative creep notwithstanding, there are pleasures in Objects. Adams' performance is one of them.

Mostly for the die-hard Seinfeld (and "Comedians") fan, these are more often about the guy who picks up the check than about his guests. But at their best, they're--what else?--funny.

A sharp, incisive and (above all) funny script and direction to match. ... Whishaw's brilliant here, and almost effortlessly steals the entire miniseries.

Too much canvas with wild splashes of paint deployed to fill it. Compared with the first, the second is a disappointment, but far from a failure. Best experienced in small bites instead of huge indigestible chunks.

Light as air, not much more substance, "Take Two" is a genial "Castle" redo.

Fist-clenching may be a novel approach, also a self-negating one, and Yellowstone--good writing, solid cast, nice views aside--can also be a bummer at times. Nicely done series that can also, from a viewer perspective, be depleting.

As good as Weaver and her Nuri are, the best scenes belong to Victor and her Angela Brown. ... Never bet against a show created by Mara Brock Akil, but feel-good "Love Is __" could use a little more edge and a lot more dramatic tension.

[The contestants] range in age from 25 to 41, aren't all model-pretty as often found on "The Bachelor," and include black, white and Hispanic women with a variety of jobs from executive assistant to neuropsychologist and a span of body types from va-voom to fuller figures. ... Also commendable is host Jesse Palmer, the sportscaster, former NFL quarterback and season-five star of "The Bachelor" who manages to project sincerity despite the remarkable premise. ... But otherwise vapid and regressive show.

New stories, new perspectives and new vistas might just do wonders for The Affair. At least they beat the alternative. Still entertaining, The Affair makes an attempt to get better by adding some diversity to the mix.

Strange Angel refuses to yield its secrets readily, or quickly, but instead methodically. Given the science (difficult) and the cult (abstruse) that's a reasonable approach to the story, just not a gripping one. And over the first three episodes, "Angel" often loses its grip.

Doubts are raised, and convincing ones, but none are fatal blows, while the program is forced to concede at the end--in an on-screen bumper--that "post-conviction DNA testing has so far come back inconclusive."

American Woman's timing may be the only thing right here. All else is wan, muddled, tired and bland.

It's all packed with inside jokes and callbacks of inside jokes. This one's for the fans.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has still got it. Kimmy mixes it up with #MeToo, with stellar results.

Often funny, engaging, and not nearly as complicated as it sounds, Dietland does grow progressively darker. This is a revenge fantasy, and with Marti Noxon at the helm, both “dark” and “funny” come with the territory.

At first engaging, then slowly, inexorably, Succession turns into work.

This certainly isn't bad TV--Murphy isn't about to leave his longtime home with a turkey--but it's often bland TV, and oddly enough, stock TV.

A reverent portrait, if not necessarily a penetrating one.

13 takes the heat off itself with an over-packed second season that doesn't quite walk back the controversies of the first, but attempts to talk them back.

A disappointing adaptation that offers a new ending, when the old one worked just fine.

This reboot of a cartoon classic does well by the original. But what's missing is its cultural cachet and wit.

Brilliant performance by a great actor in a desperately grim story.

A luminous adaptation, with Hawke as one more memorable “Jo” in a long and glorious line of them.

Sweetbitter has some sensory pleasures, a good cast and better wine (or so we're told). Otherwise occasionally pretentious and ultimately superficial.

How to honor the memory of a beloved is its theme, or one of them. You can't get much more universal than that. Fine newcomer with excellent cast, and some universal themes.

This series has an underdog spirit of its own, even if it's not quite the triumphant crane kick it could be.

Exhaustive, admiring, comprehensive and richly documented, Bobby Kennedy for President nevertheless doesn't feel especially revelatory.

The central argument in Zimny’s loving, but unflinching documentary “Elvis Presley: The Searcher” is that his openness and inquisitive nature is what made him the King.

Blessedly for fans who don’t want to work so hard, less so for those wonks who do, the second season is much easier. It’s still brainy while managing to push the new narrative ahead hard and fast. It also manages to splatter the brains too: Westworld is now less a searing indictment of screen violence (the first season) and more a straight-up snuff series.

This second season is packed, but without getting too far into spoiler territory, fans can be assured that what's here feels exactly right.

Killing Eve can be violent and bloody, sometimes too violent and bloody, but get past that and an intriguing new antihero awaits.

A beauty to behold but an ice cube to hold, this Howards End never quite thaws.

Brilliant as ever, Pacino is the master trickster who manages to both demonize and humanize Paterno.

It was energetic (de rigeur), secular (usually is), handsomely staged (or scaffolded) and sonic (the louder the better). ... As Christ, John Legend was out-sung by Brandon Victor Dixon (Aaron Burr, “Hamilton”) who was Judas Iscariot, Norm Lewis (Caiaphas), Ben Daniels (Pontius Pilate) and Sara Bareilles (Mary Magdalene). But they out-sing everyone. Not a fair fight.

Decent pilot that promises a decent series--just not a particularly novel one.

The Last O.G. can’t help being a little sad because Morgan is a little sad, and it can’t help being a little funny because Morgan is Morgan. He so much as breathes and you laugh.

Thwarted by same-old sitcom scripting, full of adults’ childish bickering and laden with “irony” setups. ... The saving grace for the show, as for Alex, becomes his family. Through the first three episodes, they’re a nicely knit group with real chemistry and real concerns vs. the podcasts-for-dummies approach to his workplace.

As always, excellent.

There’s a thing called chemistry, which is little evident in the first few episodes here. Fischer and Hudson seem fine sparring, but not all that connected.

The new Roseanne looks like it wants to fight the 2016 election all over again. That could be a miscalculation because viewers--along with the rest of the electorate--are exhausted.

Diaries is for Shandling fans, certainly, but it’s especially for any kid who might want to become a comic, or write for TV or get into this industry. “Zen Diaries” is a nearly five-hour-long master’s degree in “the business,” and also a sober, clear-eyed view of the risks as much as the rewards.

Baffling, dull Barry is a bore, and so is the series named for him.

Swank--who arrives in the second episode--is the emotional core of Trust, also the only character with a functioning heart. In the early episodes, you never quite get to know her, and begin to wonder whether she’s worth the effort. But at least over those episodes, she is the reason to watch--the only one.

19 feels exactly like a Shondaland show, but far more like a crossover than a spinoff. There’s perhaps a bigger problem: NBC’s “Chicago Fire” already does this show and does it well.

By-the-numbers procedural with a pair of appealing leads. Otherwise, by-the-book bland.

The few “Spring Awakening” numbers are good, the cast is solid, but otherwise Rise falls flat.

Intelligent, sharply produced and respectful of its female characters, For the People looks like a winner.

The three judges are amiable, upbeat and gentle. They’re also incapable of criticism, either constructive or harsh. ... It’s a soft down pillow, a gentle bromide for turbulent times. Ageless, old-fashioned, congenial, reassuring.

Platinum-plated nonsense--but also self-aware enough to know just how nonsensical. Deception is mostly just a lot of fun.

Champions wants to be liked, and it is likable, but maybe just a little too eager to earn points.

Ritter’s Jessica Jones remains the most compelling, evocative and dynamic character in Netflix’s Marvel canon. A pity poor Jessica doesn’t think so.

It’s not fully baked, not by a mile, because Baldwin has launched with friends, or at least show biz friends, who admire him as much as he admires them. ... Nobody’s neutral about him, and their neutrality will be tested as much as his. The show’s potential will rise or fall in those edgy encounters when they come, and they certainly should. That passion could ultimately be Sunday’s chief asset.

Atlanta is still good and still roughshod, but there’s a tougher texture to this season. That’s mainly the robbin’ part.

Good Girls understands the genre (revenge fantasy) and source material (see above) but hasn’t the slightest idea what to do with it.

Where all this ends up, you already know. But at least Unsolved does a good job of making you care about the failure. Engaging, interesting, watchable.

The series works overtime to place itself in a “real” world and treat faith earnestly, yet undercuts itself by resorting to every sitcom trick in the TV book.

The role of a male comedian--particularly one like Rock--has since assumed a whole new dimension, too. He launches with Black Lives Matter, moves on to the failure of schools to prepare kids for life, then establishes the importance of bullies. But that’s the warm-up act for the main show--that apologia for his indefensible behavior and the personal failures he brought upon himself.

It’s an unconventional love story that needs another season to figure out what it really wants to be, and how best to get there. At least the most important elements--or both of them, anyway--are in place.

Like all love affairs, this one needs the time to develop and gets it.

As the light of democracy dims, Carrie has become more manic (understandable), and Saul more resolute. The world has turned upside down, and only they can set it right. We know they’ll eventually save the presidency, hopefully the president, too. We know real news will eventually prevail over O’Keefe’s incendiary fake variety. We know all this, but we also suspect the ride would be a lot more fun if Peter was along for it.

Maddening Here and Now can also be engaging and provocative. The frustration is in never quite knowing what it wants to be.

Insanely violent, but, yup, often beautiful and intoxicating. A mind-bender that can be worth the bender.

In spite of impressive pedigree and cast, along with a few laughs, A.P. Bio ultimately earns a gentlemanly C.

One Day at a Time doesn’t make us laugh so much as let us laugh. Not to say there aren’t some sitcom-y jokes, but they tend to feel real. ... Engaging cast, smart writing, laugh-out-loud execution.

Waco won’t be the first drama to reduce a tragedy to its simplest components, but this doesn’t offer much confidence that these are the right components or the only ones. This is Waco in black and white, absent any shades of gray--an inkblot test with just one interpretation.

The early hours are mostly placid, even docile. What must have come to life in the pages of the book struggles to find so much as a spark on the screen — difficult, admittedly, through the pall of smoke and shadows that tend to choke it. The characters are bland, too.

Painfully familiar hospital drama that starts off sloppy but improves.

Mosaic is so entertaining (it is) and engrossing (that, too) that it flies by. These six hours pleasurably melt away, and before you know it, you’re at the closing credits.

A worthy successor to the original, Blue Planet II also brings an urgent environmental warning that the first lacked: It demonstrates that the seas are in trouble and that the world must act.

Sorry, not as good as “O.J.,” but Criss turns in a dynamic performance in service of a desperately sad story.

The second season is a beauty, and Diana Rigg is in the house, but Victoria still feels like sanitized history.

The pilot’s tropes are overly familiar, the action sequences predictable. But this is absolutely a welcome addition, potentially a valuable one, and indisputably a long overdue one.