All the Way gets a couple of electrifying performances that catalyze the drama--not to mention the forward momentum of history. They’re brief, but they do the job. ... Magnificent, often stirring performance by Cranston that no one else comes close to matching.

Genius can be gimmicky, while those eternal questions about time travel and alien life forms are ultimately beyond the power of TV (or sand piles) to answer. But the value of this series lies in the attempt, which is ambitious and edifying.

As always, a welcome summer visitor.

An interesting, compelling idea for a TV series. Too bad a boilerplate cop procedural had to be the series they got instead.

It’s easy enough for new viewers to join this Emmy-nominated gem, as its third season reshuffles everyone’s deck at least once.

Hilarious, as always, and unexpectedly, maybe an instructional guide to the current political landscape.

Fans will be happy, but you newbies have been warned--the vulgarity will blow your hair back, or right off.

The real le Carré unreels here, with savvy updates (re-gendering the book’s male spy boss) strengthening his nail-biting storytelling and ever keen focus on the toxic bureaucracy behind even the most opulent intrigue.

What worked especially well last season also gets better in the second.

Dutiful, respectful, evenhanded, and full of old network TV news clips that attest to the great drama of the moment, Confirmation can also be about as adventurous as a televised hearing on C-SPAN.

A convoluted story that doesn’t seem all that worthwhile to unravel, or peel--or watch..

The Detour is ruthlessly adult stuff--surely too frank and out-there for some viewers--but it’s intrinsically honest, convulsively hilarious and oddly endearing.

The Jamie and Claire show moves to Paris--and in a sense, Frank and Jack do as well. A nice change of locale, and tone.

There’s a fine line between “calming” and “soporific,” but the new season mostly manages to stay on the right side of it, judging by the first three episodes.

The show is bad, the star a bit sad, his shtick as old as a rock.

This is a singular vision throughout, written and directed by the team of Lodge Kerrigan and Amy Seimetz. (She also plays Christine’s older sister.) Their intense focus draws a disquieting portrait of a peculiar personality.

Fascinating, disjointed, moving, tiresome, elegant, tacky, fast, slow. There’s a little something for everyone here.

The Ranch isn’t hateable as much as just bone-weary. It’s a by-the-dots, or the numbers--whichever are easiest to connect--sitcom that proceeds according to formula.

The plotting had better up its game, too, with nearly every pilot “twist” being ridiculously predictable.

Should Lopez go big and broad with cultural comedy, trafficking so hard in stereotypes they seem all the more absurd? Or stay subtle and let its less-enlightened characters hang themselves? “Lopez” can’t decide, overloading its pilot with maid/valet/parole jokes (those crazy Mexicans!) vs. “white-man problems.”

The Path is a grim unburdening, all right, but also that what-if series in search of deeper moorings, and a deeper meaning.

The Catch is about illusions, also about who’s real, or not. It’s about human mirages. Could Ben possibly be a genuine “catch,” or is he just another Shondaland heel in a bespoke suit? The answer is not so clear-cut, and it’s also what makes The Catch so possibly engaging.

This all felt too commercial, too slick, too “American Idol”-ized. The Passion is Christianity’s foundational story. This usually--also awkwardly and regrettably--felt like just another TV one.

Daredevil” isn’t only mindlessly violent, but mindless, too. The cast is terrific, production values superlative and direction first-rate.... But is there a functioning brain, or at least a higher purpose, maybe a deeper one? Like Matt’s own search for meaning, good luck finding answers.

The Americans remains a superior American drama and--admittedly, without having a working knowledge on the subject--possibly one of the best Russian TV dramas, too.... These four [episodes] also feel weighted and forlorn, as the chain of lies loop around and around the ankles of Paige and Martha, or those others unlucky enough to know Philip and Elizabeth, with an anchor just waiting to be tossed overboard.

Beyond comprehension, beyond silly, beyond words.

A genial, old-fashioned--nay, prehistoric--family sitcom on the wrong network.

A good portrait of a fallen man and the place he has fallen into. Promising--but also frustrating.