Like the comedians, the scripts try too hard. Once the stage is set (and those conceits are out of the way), I’m Dying starts to breathe and draw us in.

Fey and Carlock constantly keep audience members on their toes, thrusting ideas that sound so wacky they’d never work. And yet they do.

The Wizard of Lies doesn’t have the pop of “The Wolf of Wall Street” or “The Big Short” but it does its best to give viewers a look at a man who still seems like an enigma. Complexity aside, it gives De Niro one more notch on his belt of highly detailed, award-winning characters.

It’s just another sitcom set at a television show.

Aptly named, Genius is kinetic.

While there are far too few Veep episodes each season, the ones that begin this, the sixth, are jewels to treasure. Unimpeachable, Veep remains the best comedy on television. Now, more than ever.

Wackier than the last outing, Season Three has a moment in the first episode that is both hilarious and appalling.

This one doesn’t bother teaching any great lessons. It looks for the laughs, makes its points and gets out.

“The Jinx” constantly surprised. Trial & Error seems like it’s just going through the motions.

Murphy gives his eight-part series a lush old Hollywood look and lets both Lange and Sarandon have fun recreating the quirks that made the actresses so memorable. While Sarandon is a dead ringer for Davis, Lange has to work harder to find the outsized Crawford. Both are ably abetted by a host of actors as recognizable names.

Like life, it unfolds in quirky ways. Knowing Dunham, its ending will leave questions: Will we get to see what great work comes from her character's experiences? Easily, this could be the "Go Set a Watchman" for something more.

By breaking the books into digestible chunks, it goes down smoothly and, yes, makes you want more.

That they’re both gone without realizing the full impact they made is probably the saddest part of a very fun journey. Bloom and Stevens didn’t miss a beat.

Olson does a great job as the title character, willing to go for anything if it lands a laugh. (Most times it does.)

The Duffers captured the vibe quite nicely, tell a story that doesn’t seem watered down and emerge with a series that could be the summer’s equivalent of a large popcorn with plenty of butter and a kidney-busting keg of Coke.

Vice Principals is as profane and outrageous as HBO comedies get. Once you realize where this is headed, you’ll want to stay after school just to see how it all plays out.

An uneven peek at the men and women who make headliners look good night after night after night.

The Jim Gaffigan Show works best when it’s housebound and forced to deal with a man who lives in boxer shorts and never seems too far from an all-you-can-eat home buffet.

BrainDead comments better than a Sunday morning pundit, moves faster than a New York to D.C. train and never pauses to filibuster.

The drama that surrounds them is fairly familiar and hardly religion-specific. Greenleaf World Ministries needs more of the details that would make this more than just another soap opera.

It’s a magnetic production, one that’s filled with precious performances that sparkle.

All the Way works because Cranston is so determined to make Johnson relatable. He shows there’s more to the guy than baling wire and spit. Best of all, he isn’t afraid to let him look weak and afraid.

Kimmy gets a little smarter, too, and finds relations outside that circle of new life that embraced her last year.

The Night Manager is easily the best miniseries of the year--in a year packed with monumental ones. Hiddleston, Laurie and Bier aren’t just adding another credit to their resumes. They’re part of a series that’s quite likely a game changer.

Silicon Valley isn’t the kind of place you’d like to live (or even work), but it is a fun spot to visit. It makes you happy you never devised a single app in your life

Veep doesn’t have as many pointed one-liners as it did in the past (could the absence of creator Armando Iannucci be the reason?) but it still boasts a cast that’s as sharp as ever. The addition of John Slattery as a possible love interest is clever, but some installments get bogged down by a parade of guest stars trying to share a bit of the fun.

The sets and costumes are great. Now, the mysteries need to rise to the occasion.

Filled with predictable jokes, stereotypical characters and situations that wouldn’t have been fresh two decades ago, the new comedy wastes its premise and all but deserts star Patrick Warburton, the only one who appears to be making an effort.