In the end, it’s all about the stellar cast and the insightful and sharp writing.

The series is appreciably unsettling, but thus far it won’t make your head spin.

[Amy Schumer] remains a potent original, torpedoing gender inequality and smartly dissecting cultural and sexual norms. And yet, Season 4 of the show also unconsciously struggles with heightened expectations.

No part of the equation that makes up Galavant is subtle. It piles on the songs, the choreography, the bawdy humor and the clever writing. That deep dive into the genre is what will help viewers shake off the doubts we had going into it. Galavant is a uniquely enjoyable ride.

Subplots surrounding Green’s southern belle daughters, espionage and PTSD do little to move the series along and would’ve been better shortened or left on the cutting-room floor. That said, such distractions do little to dilute Mercy Street as the imperative Civil War narrative it truly is.

Everything about this comedy felt canned, artificial and forced. The dialogue was awkward enough that the actors didn't look comfortable delivering their lines, the audience wasn't always sure when and how to react, and I wasn't sure how much longer I could take it.

The pacing in the early episodes can be uneven, and some plot points you see coming from a long way off. But BrainDead is promisingly original, a deft combination of the tropes of a horror movie, the pace of a forensic drama and the barbs of a political satire that’s thoroughly of the moment.

It helps that the show is well-acted, and that everything from the fonts to the costumes to the camerawork are gorgeous. You may need a while to puzzle out what's happening on screen, but at least you can enjoy some lovely scenery.

It’s all wonderfully led by an unrecognizable Richard Dreyfuss in the leading role and Blythe Danner as his wife, Ruth.... Where Madoff falls short is in developing the man’s complex relationships with his sons, wife and those who beg him to take their money. While the narrative certainly scratches the surface, it’s not often that it delves any deeper as the writers choose instead to grandstand Dreyfuss’ performance as the leading man.

The miniseries’ balance between individual narratives and humanity’s collective destiny remains a bit wobbly throughout.

In the end, this “Around the World” is more cringeworthy than fun.

The best that can be said about The Magician thus far is that it has so many balls in the air that you’re tempted to stick with it just to see where it’s going. Even then, though, the show puts more stock in atmosphere and attitude than in distinguishing its characters or sci-fi fantasy terrain from those of comparable projects.

It’s a visual, visceral romp into what is being set up to be another haphazard foray into the world of horror, as imagined by Murphy and his writing counterpart Brad Falchuk. The show has rarely made sense in terms of story, and this is no exception.

The result is a clunky hour of bad one-liners and exposition.... The narrative tightens up in Episode 2, at least, as the series settles into a Monster-of-the-Week format. That allows Duchovny and Anderson to play to their respective strengths, but it also feels like the show is marking time.

Marriage and its trials and tribulations emerge as something of its own character as the show presses on.

The entire two-hour pilot is parody, on top of parody, on top of parody. The sentences coming out of Chanel’s mouth are beyond anything a clichéd mean girl would utter in other high school or sorority movies, while every homage to films like Scream or Urban Legends is taken to the extreme. What makes it work is Murphy’s renowned world-building.

It’s heightened reality at its finest as Vaughan and her associates (Elvy Yost, Jay Hayden and Rollins) proceed to track down the con artists who hacked them and stop them before too much damage is done.

[Arthur Darvill's Rip Hunter is] definitely the best part of the show. Which is all the more aggravating when he gets sidelined for long stretches in favor of the more familiar characters.... Some things work great, though. A 1975-set bar fight involving Lotz, Miller and Purcell is quite fun, and the action in general scenes genuinely work, helping the fledgling series come together. But when the characters stand around and talk, things start to feel silly.

The writing is fairly predictable on the pilot, which plays a lot of emotional notes we're all very familiar with on TV.... Problems aside, there's a “Wonder Years” quality to Red Band Society that transports viewers back to those simple firsts in life, the coming of age rites of passage that we all instantly understand and can connect to.

By episode three, Tomlin and Fonda find their comedic voices and cement Grace and Frankie as the candid and humorous series it truly is.

This big-box comedy is stocked full of broad and easy laughs familiar though they may be.

The plotting is pretty perfunctory, but McDorman wears the show’s hyperbolic intensity lightly, as if playfully mocking the hard-boiled self-seriousness around him. But he also brings pathos to Brian’s gnawing sense of failure.

Ferguson's voiceover hits the holiday season sweet spot: Just sentimental enough. Frankly decorous sex scenes and brutal conditions for men and women help save The Red Tent from becoming overly cloying. It's got just enough red blood pulsing through it to avoid that.

Luxe environments mixed with bitchy teen entitlement and karmic vengeance drive Scream beyond its slasher-exploitation film genesis to a stylish metaphor about a new generation’s excesses and mean-girl cruelty.

The fictional Crystal and Gad have zero chemistry as the series launches, which becomes a pivotal part of the plot as the series progresses. Unfortunately, their real-life counterparts portrayed this lack of comedic chemistry so well in the beginning that it not only impacted the development of show within the show “The Billy & Josh Show,” it was leaving a lukewarm first impression of The Comedians as well.

By the end of its premiere, Selfie became a watchable show with actual potential. I'm just not sure most people will be able to hang in there that long to see it unfold.

While the characters sometimes border on cartoonish, they also manage to showcase an underdog quality that will have the audiences rooting for them anyway, and they’re somewhat grounded by the rest of the cast, including librarian Abbey Logan (Maria Thayer).

The attempt to ground the show in reality feels unnecessary and not fun, because nothing here is all that unbelievable.