Depending on the subjects mocked and viewers' personal sacred cows, Root of All Evil won't appeal to everyone on a weekly basis (future episodes include Donald Trump vs. Viagra, Paris Hilton vs. Dick Cheney and Las Vegas vs. the human body), but it is a successful attempt to re-package stand-up comedy for prime time.

Its hits outpace its misses--by a mile. That's not often the case with sketch comedy shows. Just as important, the humor is consistently smart.

Generally they do their best to walk a fine line, attempting to execute the show in as uncomplicated a way as possible so less devoted viewers keep watching while rewarding obsessive fans with small steps forward in the exploration of Britten's condition.

From its title to its tone to its production design and look, “The Great” mirrors “The Favourite” quite a bit. “The Great” is at its, uh, greatest when Fanning and Hoult spark off one another with McNamara’s rat-a-tat-tat dialogue.

Underground is a rough watch, but it offers twists and compelling characters worth watching for viewers up to the challenge.

Sunday's premiere is pretty light on laughs. A couple of moments inspire guffaws but they are few and far between. The show's second episode offers more humor.

Whether viewers find Enlightened all that funny may depend upon whether they have a person similar to Amy in their lives--and whether they want to spend time with an irrational, hysteria-prone fictional character, too.

There's still some fun to be had watching True Blood but it offers more soap than satire or social commentary these days.

The network scores again with the clever, entertaining enough iZombie.

Showrunner Dan Futterman (writer of “Gracepoint” and “Foxcatcher,” once a co-star on “Judging Amy”) keeps the tension high and the pace generally relentless. “The Looming Tower” only falters in an embarrassingly trite early scene of O’Neill with one of his many women. But when the focus is on the work, “Looming Tower” looms large as a well-made story of human and systemic failings.

A terrifically entertaining action-adventure hour that pays dividends for 'Avengers' fanboys/girls but isn't so insular that the uninitiated will be baffled.

Thanks to clever dialogue, Awkward manages to rise above its been-there, watched-that premise.

Viewers who can handle the twists and turns will be intrigued, particularly by Mr. Spader's performance.

The first three hours of the new season that Showtime made available for review suggest Homeland is up for new challenges that move the show somewhat closer in tone to “24” while still maintaining a prestige sheen that it’s smarter, less formulaic and more believable than the Fox terrorism drama.

Elf offers some slight, warmed over charms.

Fans of the original are likely to enjoy this follow-up, which improves in succeeding episodes after the somewhat lackluster first entry and those who scratched their heads at the movie are likely to have the same reaction to this prequel series.

Simply put, "Traffic" is the best non-HBO miniseries to come on TV in years. [25 Jan 2004]

First impressions suggest the writers of Last Resort are waging an internal battle between grounding the show in some semblance of reality and allowing it to spin out into cheap soap opera territory.

Humans does introduce some intriguing scenarios that may, or may not, pay off.

“Versace" is not perfect--some episodes meander a bit and anytime the story takes viewers back to Versace and away from the other victims, it becomes less compelling--but it marks an early, strong entry for one of the best series of 2018.

A high-gloss series with production values just as significant as what we see on American TV, it's worth checking into Hotel Babylon if you're seeking a respite from reality--TV shows or otherwise.

What sets Carrier apart is the amount of time devoted to this single topic, a whopping 10 hours. I made it through the first three hours without losing interest, but I wonder how many viewers will gut it out for the duration.

Her observations throughout Wishful Drinking are incisive and funny. But at times the production, directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, gets a little bogged down in minutiae.

It's a fascinating glimpse into a culture that I suspect many Americans would prefer to remain ignorant about.

The new Upstairs gets off to a somewhat slow start in the first of three one-hour installments, but in its second and third episodes the dramatic engines rev as the political climate of the day begins to drive the story.

World on Fire” plays like a mainstream broadcast network miniseries circa 1988. That’s not a knock. It’s kind of cool to have this sort of story back on TV, an old-school format that follows disparate characters in desperate times. If you liked “The Winds of War,” this should be a nice reminder of that ABC classic.

Levi exudes an everyman appeal that may catch on with viewers, but the show's plots need to grow beyond the action-adventure tropes of 1970s TV if Chuck hopes to avoid being chucked off NBC's prime-time schedule.

It’s been a while since basic cable has delivered a guilty pleasure as enticing and entertaining as Lifetime’s stalker drama You.