It boldly commits to its campy, overcast aesthetic--and it’s here I’ll note that I’m not naturally inclined toward teen melodrama, but can be drawn in if the execution’s great enough (like The O.C., or Everwood, whose creator Greg Berlanti is an executive producer here)--while struggling at times to turn its characters from archetypes into individuals.

If you can view Cunanan not as the protagonist of Assassination, but its connective tissue, then it begins to feel more satisfying as a series of tragic vignettes about what it was like to be gay in America in the ’90s. ... But Cunanan’s just not interesting enough to support so much screen time, especially because we don’t really get to understand what makes him tick until the story’s nearly over. And even then, it’s hard to find empathy, given what we know about all the horror he inflicted.

Marissa brings so much energy and fun into every scene she’s in, she even manages to make Maia seem vaguely interesting through their friendship. The rest of the show is still an entertaining (if uneven) continuation of the original’s world, but her scenes are so much livelier than anything else.

Based on the six episodes Cinemax sent out for review in advance of Friday night’s premiere, it’s in many ways the Strike Back fans knew and loved the first time out. ... At the same time, the whole thing feels a bit thinner and more formulaic than the previous incarnation. ... It so far feels only as good as it needs to be, which is a step down from what the prior incarnation showed it could do.

It’s a good cast--Hudgens is energetic and likable in the straight woman role, Tudyk can play this kind of obnoxious bro in his sleep, and Pudi and the others (including Christina Kirk as Van’s beleaguered assistant, Jackie) already have a solid handle on what differentiates each nerdy character from the others--and every now and then comes a scene or joke that lives up to the promise of showing an extraordinary world from the most ordinary point of view.

It is, like First Day of Camp, very hit-or-miss. Some of the newbies never entirely click, while other relative latecomers (particularly Wain and Lake Bell as Hebrew-speaking lovers who rope Ken Marino’s muscular virgin Victor into solving their fertility issues) inject some fresh life into the proceedings given the absence of some characters and the diminishing returns of others.

Altered Carbon could become almost anything. But as with most Netflix series--as well as with most Meths--that limitless potential can too often lead to sedentary self-indulgence.

These early episodes have some of the usual growing pains first-year comedies go through as the creative team figures out what’s funny about each actor and character; they’ve already solved McDermott/Dave, so you have to wait to see if the others can catch up.

The drama’s second season (it debuts Friday; I’ve seen all 10 episodes) unfortunately isn’t at that level [of season one]. It’s peppered with moments, and even whole episodes, that evoke the quality of season one, but overall there are enough decisions to bring it down into “If you like this sort of thing, you’ll probably like this sort of thing” territory, where once it was the sort of show where I always had to preface my remarks with, “I know this doesn’t sound like it’s for you, but…”

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks on the whole is a missed opportunity, despite some strong individual moments and a fine cast that also includes Reg E. Cathey, Rocky Carroll, and Peter Gerety. Oprah’s so good in it, though.

A lot of individual pieces succeed, in part due to the versatility and appeal of the three leads--Whitman’s spent her whole career zipping back and forth between laughs (Arrested Development) and tears (Parenthood), and Hendricks (Mad Men) and Retta (Parks and Recreation) have both on their resumés, too--but too many scenes are at odds with one another.

There are a lot of moving parts, some of which work quite well (Mel Harris as a wealthy but naive client who thinks the Haverfords are saving her from a short con when they’re really setting her up for a long one), others of which grind the show to a halt (Dylan Schmid as the inevitable troublemaking teenage son).

Creator Davey Holmes (Shameless, In Treatment) was wise to not aim directly at the movie, but his replacement ideas are a mixed bag.

There’s a potentially great show lurking not far beneath the surface ... But every time the stronger version of the series gets its head above water, it gets shoved back down by a puzzling creative choice that left me wondering if it's worth waiting around to see if Shaw and company can achieve SMILF's full potential.

There’s promising raw material in both shows (with Young Sheldon, it’s the mother/son dynamic and the chemistry between Perry and Armitage), but they have work to do refining it after these pilots.

Shaun improvising surgical procedures with whatever he can find on a TSA conveyer belt, or flashbacks to Shaun’s very difficult childhood, are effective, and promise a solid, if familiar, show to come. But boy oh boy do the scenes where his colleagues debate Shaun’s fitness for the job labor, while also feeling like artifacts from around when Big Bang Theory debuted, if not earlier.

The heavy emphasis on Lou trying to encourage the students, the other teachers, and even the whole town to live up to the show’s title unfortunately takes away from Rise‘s strengths: namely, the kids themselves. In particular, Moana star Auli’i Cravalho and Damon J. Gillespie are everything the series needs them to be.

There are some nice action sequences, particularly in the opening two episodes, directed by Game of Thrones‘ Neil Marshall, and the series as a whole looks great, convincingly transforming the wilds outside Vancouver into something that feels genuinely alien. But outside of everyone’s complicated relationship with the Robot (and even that’s a very slow burn), there’s just not enough there in the story or characters that feels distinctive or compelling enough to keep going.

Chicago Justice feels like comfort food in the same way the other Chicago series have when I’ve sampled them, with all the narrative and ethical complexity smoothed out just enough that you won’t miss anything if a sock-sorting problem becomes surprisingly difficult while you watch.

The series, which carries the tagline “How crack began,” has style and a strong lead performance from Idris, but it’s too familiar, especially early on, of other, better drug sagas--more methadone than the real fix.

The suits, hats, gowns, and sets all look smashing, and the actors are strong, particularly Bomer ratcheting up his boyish charm to its most potent in order to convey how justly beloved Monroe is in an otherwise-cutthroat town. But the characters all feel like stock types borrowed from other series, even if many of them were created by Fitzgerald back in his final days, and the whole thing feels a bit dull. I have all the love in the world for tales of pre-WWII Hollywood, but ran out of patience with this one by the end of the fourth episode.

Santa Clarita Diet is an unfortunate collection of mismatched parts, and gory humor that quickly becomes numbing.

AMC’s version of The Son (it debuts Saturday night at 9; I’ve seen the first two episodes) is a glum, lifelessly condensed take on the material that in the early going doesn’t even rise to the passable standard of Hell on Wheels.

They play like an old-school Law & Order episode elongated well past the point of interest, without any of the nuance or larger sociological implications that justified Murphy and friends devoting so much time to the O.J. Simpson trial.

Yet even with Momoa and McClarnon being more central to the action, it’s middling historical drama at best, like the early days of AMC’s Turn or Hell on Wheels.

What might have felt like a novel idea 10 or 15 years ago--middle-aged white anti-hero does something terrible to help his family, and only gets pulled in deeper and deeper--is now so tired that it would require sheer brilliance to come out feeling as fresh and untainted as all the money that Marty cleans. And Ozark isn’t up to that challenge.

Friends From College is a shrill and unpleasant dramedy about the dangers of maintaining youthful friendships deep into adulthood.

We got a show that’s so lifeless that I have no interest in finishing out the season.