“Abbott Elementary” reminds us how entertaining mockumentaries can be. It helps that the show is superbly cast.

As Michael Peterson, Colin Firth manages to make us think he’s guilty as hell one minute, and possibly innocent the next. Toni Collette is touching as Kathleen. And while many a series has caused eyes to glaze over when the plot shifts to younger characters, the dynamics among grown children in this extended family are consistently absorbing.

The show drops in lovely little moments, funny, melancholy and insightful.

Quibbles aside, watching this superb cast working together remains a pleasure, and it makes Season 2 of Orange Is the New Black an irresistible summer viewing choice.

Lakshmi links her personal experience with the areas that she visits, which makes “Taste the Nation” feel both personal and universal.

It’s all dazzling, if sometimes disorienting. After five episodes, it’s hard to know where “Lovecraft Country” is going. But even if it careens off the rails, the show has so much creativity and passion it’s a ride worth taking, wherever it leads.

A true horror story, possibly the most successful horror story ever made for television, a medium hostile to sustaining belief in the unbelievable. The four-hour miniseries is a bit too long, and the ending doesn't live up to what has gone before, but this Stephen King story is gripping, fascinating, well-acted and superbly produced. [18 Nov 1990, p.5]

At times, Luke Cage feels so concerned with urban problems, it's as if Marvel met "The Wire," an impression helped by an excellent cast.

Based on the first three episodes, Dunham is ready to end her story with satirical precision and self-aware compassion.

Odenkirk is a gifted comic actor, and the sadness in his eyes hints that he can fill in more dimensions to Jimmy McGill as time goes on. But the first two episodes of Better Call Saul take their own sweet time setting things up.

Though many aspects of Williams’ life were sad, for two hours, Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind brings him back to life, showcasing the brilliance, impact, and vulnerability that made Williams special, and that make his death still feel like such a loss.

While the first episode is comfortingly familiar to Community obsessives, the second one feels weirdly off.

Sharp Objects may not be compulsively watchable, but it’s much better than the “Gone Girl” movie, with its own sweaty, sensual, mesmerizing atmosphere.

Brodsky resists the temptation to judge, and instead sheds light on her subjects, and all their complexity.

Even when scenes border on getting mushy, as in the final moments of Stranger Things 2, the sentiment feels earned, not plastered on. Scary, witty and sweet, Stranger Things 2 just might give sequels a good name.

Season 2 improves on Season 1 by broadening the story to give us the points of view of the wronged spouses, Noah's wife, Helen (Maura Tierney,) and Alison's husband, Cole (Joshua Jackson.) Tierney and Jackson are both so good, they left us wanting more in Season 1, and it's great to see their characters do some well-justified venting.

All the Way shows so much of the backroom dealings, influence-peddling and strategic threats that typified Johnson's approach that it can be a bit plodding and talky. ... Fortunately, the events are so momentous, and the cast so outstanding, they keep the stakes high.

American Gods is amazing to look at and often hard to watch. If you're a fan of Gaiman's work, and patient with slow-moving scenes of thinly developed characters speechifying, you may like it. Others might want to proceed with caution.

Black-ish is one of the best new shows of the season.

Documentary Now! is dazzlingly smart.... It's true that Documentary Now! is funnier if you're at least vaguely familiar with the movies that serve as the inspirations.

Too often feels like a show about an institution, instead of an exploration of characters. ... Forever has genuine warmth and affection for its characters, and it ends with some of the best work Armisen and Rudolph have ever done. ... But Forever would be better if it moved a little faster, and gave viewers more reasons to stick with it until the end.

Those are a lot of threads to knit together, and some feel looser than others.... But there are enough chilling scenes to make The Man in the High Castle genuinely disturbing.

If you're still on board with wondering if Carrie will go off her meds again, whether she and Saul will patch things up, or if Quinn is an alienated killing machine or kind of crushing on Carrie, welcome back to Homeland. But if you're craving something more, Season 5 may feel like a retread job on tires that are showing their wear.

At times endearingly old-fashioned (montages of whirling newspaper headlines), sometimes scatalogical (a time-machine toilet), occasionally blasphemous ("Turkey Jesus"), and totally irreverent (Odenkirk as "Pope Jonah Abromowitz.") The tone can get pointed (Cross as a filmmaker who's such an apologist for slavery he refuses to call it that, instead using the term, "helperism"), but the mood stays buoyant.

Even when The Defiant Ones pauses to reflect on grim reality and troubled times, its tone is generally laudatory. We may wish for more depth and perspective. But then along comes another vintage clip of U2 in its prime, or Snoop Dogg's laid-back assurance, or a young Springsteen and the E Street Band, and the music takes over, and takes us away.

The documentary does a fine job of explaining why Franklin was such a consequential figure. Unfortunately, “Benjamin Franklin” doesn’t really bring this founding father to life. ... The life of Franklin doesn’t need to be turned into “Hamilton,” but some artistic interpretation of the man might help fill out a portrait that seems accurate, but dry.

Once you start watching the eight episodes, it's hard not to get hooked on solving the mystery, even if the show lays it on a bit thick when it comes to opining about the impact social media has on young people growing up in a world that allows them--or is that forces them?--to construct online personas to broadcast their every move via smart phones, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and endless selfies.

[Stewart's] gravity, empathy and dignity ground “Star Trek: Picard,” and make it surprisingly moving. ... If the dialogue sometimes veers into the geeky, for the most part, “Star Trek: Picard” benefits from keeping the characters front and center.