The first five episodes made available for review are underwhelming and under-achieving.

Harlots tends to teeter between being a lark and a social tract. The flesh is willing throughout, but the structure can be a little weak. Still, this is a decidedly different and bracing look at ye olde England, with power struggles aplenty as women strive to assert themselves while men mostly just want to insert themselves.

More than halfway through, Shots Fired is still without any indictments while bobbing and weaving through various subplots. Still, it’s drama of a fairly high order.

You’ll likely at least be grinning, if not sometimes laughing out loud. Because after a halting start, the amusements are plentiful during the three half-hours made available for review.

The starkest and grimmest yet with its depictions of migrant worker and teen girl trafficking. ... So as with When We Rise, applause, applause--even if it sometimes feels like one hand clapping.

Season 5 of The Americans almost assuredly will round into form after a rather sluggish start compared to previous returns. In the initial three hours, the plot both thickens and sometimes congeals.

Stroma and Rodriguez have some sweet getting-to-know-you moments together while Bowman has presence as a menace run amuck. Still, by the end of Episode 2, a dull-edged redundancy is already starting to set in.

Making History doesn’t get everything right. But the series’ principal trio commit themselves fully, with Meester particularly fresh and appealing as a transplanted colonial having the time of her life as a newly liberated woman.

Bette and Joan gives Lange and Sarandon a sublime showcase from the first moment they hit their marks.

Chicago Justice, which some also see as something of a lightly camouflaged Law & Order reboot, gives NBC another steady hand that’s also no great shakes. But it’ll do, and Wolf very likely has more where it came from.

A conveyor belt of death-defying and death-dispensing action scenes.

When We Rise is an enriching, bonafide TV event of the first order and also powerful enough to change more than a few entrenched minds.

Crashing has enough mostly gentle amusements to keep it on track. And it’s increasingly easy to get on Pete’s side.

The dialogue crackles and the first featured case (in Episode 2) is buoyed by a guest appearance from Christine Lahti (Chicago Hope) as a very self-assured prosecutor.

Big Little Lies isn’t stitched tightly enough to be a truly great miniseries.

So far it’s strictly so-so on the storytelling front, but with some scenes that raise the bar beyond that. Those mostly involve Light, though. And she’s not the one who’s supposed to carry the load.

Legion jars the senses as a jagged-edged jigsaw puzzle that can’t easily be put together. But there’s no inclination to ever stop trying because the overall artistry is beautiful to behold and just won’t quit.

Hours two and three, also made available for review, are somewhat better executed [than the premiere episode].

The 24 franchise still takes itself very seriously and perhaps will somehow sort things out from a basic believability standpoint as time marches on. But in the first four hours, it’s too often 24: Cuckoo Clock.

Once one gets past the gruesome goings-on in Episode One, it’s full tilt ahead in a crazily appetizing tale that’s easily swallowed whole.

A violent, virile and often vile extension of the 2001 film that won Denzel Washington a Best Actor Oscar.

Superior Donuts may well get stale in a hurry. But it’s on a network that somehow has kept the idiotic and likewise eatery-themed 2 Broke Girls on the air for an astonishing six seasons. And this one is better than that.

Tudyk camps it up as Van Wayne, sometimes amusingly so. A villain known as Jack O’Lantern also gets off a bit of a zinger while flying overhead. ... The opening comic book credits are pretty cool, too. Powerless otherwise is notably short on pop or long-term promise, with things staying pretty flat throughout Thursday’s scene-setter.

Although it arguably strings things out a bit too much, this newest Witness is a watchable feast of strong portrayals and mostly sturdy plot threads. Jones is a fearless, full-immersion actor whose performance spares him no personal indignities.

Riverdale can be overwrought at times and even too transparently politically correct at others. But it’s also crisply entertaining and particularly well-cast with respect to the pivotal roles of Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) and Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes).

Beaches hits some sweet spots without being overly taxing on the male gene.

Baskets will never be a walk in the park. And it no doubt remains too dark for many. Some rays of light are showing, though, by the end of Episode 4. Nothing overly warm and toasty, mind you. But some welcome little thaws.

Intellectually challenging while arguably also going off the rails more than a few times, The Young Pope has its work cut out in luring a sizable audience.