Gleeson does a first-rate job with a character we’ve seen before, the tormented cop who plunges into a battle where he’s seemingly outflanked and outgunned. Treadaway is suitably troubling as a kid who represses such waves of rage and frustration that we don’t doubt it could explode somewhere. That the causes of his rage play as clichés doesn’t make him less menacing, though it makes the larger story less than subtle. Call it a solid campfire yarn.

Thought-provoking and melancholy, like all good F. Scott Fitzgerald stories, The Last Tycoon delivers a good summer watch. ... All this said, The Last Tycoon has taken some critical heat, and not without cause. It has several unsparkling passages and weak spots.

The Defiant Ones sends you away admiring the two guys who made the big score.

Happily, in spite of the plot labyrinth that any conspiracy theory naturally creates, Salvation keeps its story understandable and makes us keep wanting to know what happens next.

Power has turned into a stronger show as it’s gone along because it knows how to accelerate the action and keep the characters compelling without taking the seductive path of becoming a lavish soap. ... Besides Sikura, Naughton and Loren also shine in the opener.

GLOW is not to be confused with a lecture on sociology and female empowerment in the workplace. It’s sprinkled with soap and isn’t above focusing on some of those body parts itself. But even if professional wrestling bores you to tears, GLOW spins some stories that ring true.

Created by John Singleton with Eric Amadio and Dave Andron, Snowfall is a good-looking production. It gets its music from turntables and boomboxes and it reminds us that South Central Los Angeles, for all its notoriety, has a lot of tree-lined streets and perfectly decent houses with front yards. It also reminds us that crack cocaine was not so much a brand new problem as the consequence of several larger and longer-simmering problems.

Calling Blood Drive a rom-com would be stretching things, but it is refreshing to see that love can still bloom in a world where, if you softly whispered, “I would die for you,” most of the population would take you up on the offer.

The good news is that it can be better understood even by raw rookies. More to the point, it’s worth the effort, because Tatiana Maslany gives one of the finest performances on contemporary television.

It’s amusing at times, provocative at times, because I Love Dick often explores the practice of contemporary navel-gazing by satirizing it.

There’s still plenty of humor, always bending toward the absurd, and Archer’s time travel has not stripped him of his signature phrases, attitude or fondness for bourbon and wordplay.

Even more in the second season than the first, Home Fires is an ensemble piece. ... It’s precisely this approach, telling lots of little stories whose war connections differ widely, that gives Home Fires a ring of truth.

There’s a fair amount of darkness in this story, because the lives it chronicles were not easy. There’s also a fair amount of humor. Mostly there’s admiration for three women who in a very short time accomplished things their world saw no reason to think they could.

Hap and Leonard is also a case where six episodes feels just about right. There’s time to have fun, meet some people, tell a story and leave while everyone’s still enjoying the party. As they should.

It’s not feel-good television. In the first two seasons it was very good television, and the third season has the elements to become just as compelling.

It’s not quick or easy to watch. It’s also not easy to forget.

When We Rise doesn’t pick up a story at its beginning and doesn’t leave a story with an ending. What it delivers is a game-changing saga from the middle.

Blacklist: Redemption is a sturdy show built on a smart premise.

Full of fast-paced banter and pop culture lines, Riverdale starts this road trip as a fine ride.

One of the best shows on television. Just as long as you realize it has moments that will make you feel really really sad.

Sad as the coda to Bright Lights became, it’s a story with a whole lot of heart.

Stylish, charming and thoroughly engaging.

The best reason to watch, however, is the music and the group’s on-stage performance. Whether or not you were a boy band fan in the 1980s, this is top-quality stuff.

There are few soft landings in Christie stories, and in Witness for the Prosecution several are exceptionally hard. The whole shadowy, troubling tale also feels more powerful because the cast plays it at a deliberate, ominous pace.

Hawkins does a solid job filling Jack’s familiar shoes.

While this is hardly the first complicated sibling relationship in a TV series, this one has the overlay of unspoken things both men apparently felt extraordinary circumstances had forced them to do.

It isn’t afraid to spend time in critical and somewhat obscure areas. It also enlivens the drama with sharply drawn non-musical characters.

While a tale of restless discontent in a rich California coastal town offers an intriguing ride, it’s also a deliberate one. Think of it as a Sunday drive, at a leisurely pace that enables the passengers to absorb every detail of the scenery.