Stories the writers have obviously been wanting to tell for years are ramping up, and the actors are in peak form. Even if you tuned out of this show somewhere in the intervening years, it's worth coming back to see how it all ends.

Stripping these characters of whatever power they previously had and scattering them to the winds forces everyone into their smallest, meanest selves--which frankly becomes hard to watch, and not in Veep’s usual “cringe because it’s so real” kind of way.

Fleabag is so wonderfully messy, funny, and deeply human that these seemingly chaotic collisions feel natural.

The series is probably too weird to win a bunch of Emmys, but God willing, Lyonne will be nominated. She’s so good. ... Already one of the best shows of the year.

Penelope is one of the most beautifully fleshed-out characters in a sitcom today, period. It’s as much of a joy to watch Machado work as it is to watch the Alvarez family, and the people who love them, live.

No show on the air does a better job of turning moments that ought to be blips on a viewer’s radar into moments of captivating drama, and as the story moves into increasingly tragic territory in its fourth season, it’s a necessary strength to keep Jimmy’s misfortunes (self-imposed or otherwise) something to care about, rather than to revel in.

On top of returning to the familiar, season seven feels more connected to current issues, as well. ... Where Veep is headed is hard to tell.

Appleby and Zimmer's chemistry isn't just electric, but acidic, burning through the camera lens so fast you almost forget their characters are doing truly terrible things in the name of ratings.

Despite the roiling tensions of the imminent ’60s and the various revolutions it holds, the Royal Family’s domestic politics are still what The Crown does best. And for every moment that falls apart under the weight of leaden metaphors, there are still several that shine. Royals may not be just like you or me, but they are, The Crown insists, prone to indulging the same trifling nonsense as the rest of us.

Book fans may be at a slight advantage, since if you’ve forgotten who someone is in a book, you can always go back a few pages. That is a minor complaint in the face of a series that gripped me from frame one, despite telling a very small, intimate story that occasionally amounts to two girls learning lessons about how the world works and little else.

The new status quo and even more skewed power balances within the prison doesn’t just test every single character. It pushes all of them to their limits, and eventually throws them right the hell off the cliff they’ve been teetering on the edge of.

Dissecting people--and classes, and ideas--is all that Howards End is interested in. It does so beautifully, with intellectual precision and an able and charismatic cast, but also with a clinical, not-quite-ironic distance. It’s an easy story to enjoy and admire, and a very difficult story to love wholeheartedly.

In season two, The Handmaid’s Tale continues to be an angry, searing piece of work. When it forces you to hold its infuriated gaze, it makes it clear that your inability to do so for long is exactly the point. But as it continues to broaden its world, the show needs to find a way to get more comfortable with the perspectives that make it most uncomfortable, or risk losing itself in its own myopic tragedy.

[There's a] plot twist rooted in circumstance rather than in character. As a storytelling choice, it’s just a little bit clumsy. Eve’s storyline, meanwhile, is moving more slowly than Villanelle’s: There are fewer murders, and more conversations with telemarketers (sounds dull, isn’t). But it carries enormous dramatic potential, because Eve is committing spy-vs-spy adultery. She’s begun to investigate a new female assassin.

A compliment, even if it might not sound like one: Deadwood: The Movie feels like the best TV episode of 1997. ... There is so much here that will be rich and meaningful to any TV fan, and its story is self-contained enough that you could use it as an entry point to the entire series. (That is, if you don’t mind being spoiled on several major events from all three seasons, which are depicted in flashbacks.)

DuVernay’s series offers a different way into the story, one made for an age of true crime obsession — and not only is it compelling, but it’s desperately needed.

Undone is a frequently beautiful and thought-provoking ride.

Clearly, the darkness that’s always been present in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is finally breaking through in this fourth season, even though it’s also loaded with the same hysterical one-liners and fast-paced humor of the other seasons.

It’s impeccably acted, written, and directed, and no matter how ridiculous “a series about the 1970s porn industry with two James Francos” might sound to you, this is somehow not just the best possible execution of that idea, but the most thoughtful one, too. It’s the best show of the fall, by a wide, wide margin.

In season two, it's altogether richer, more daring, and even more fun.

Show Me a Hero always feels thrillingly alive and attuned to the way that all politics is personal.... One of the year's very best TV programs.

With the confidence of a show that knows exactly what it wants to be--and with the titanic Bamford anchoring every scene with incredible empathy and generosity, Lady Dynamite manages to stand out amid the constantly churning fray of television by being entirely, proudly itself.

At times the plot of Unorthodox feels a little too carefully devised to maneuver characters into places where they can encounter one another; at the same time, that makes for pleasurably succinct storytelling.

The episodic focus also allows the show to skip over big swaths of time when nothing interesting is happening, the better to get to the good stuff. That leaves GLOW slightly less than the sum of its parts. But at the same time, the parts are so inventive, so stylish, and so fun that I feel churlish pointing out how they don’t quite cohere into anything more in the end. Maybe the best advice I can give is: Watch this show. Watch it several times. It’s a good one

Whenever Midge gets up on the standup comedy stage, her scenes are electrifying. ... It’s also a show that can never quite see past its own blinders on anything that doesn’t relate to a 1950s battle of the sexes. It knows issues around race and class exist. It even knows that issues around religion exist. But it never knows what to do with them, because it needs them to remain off camera, so that it might construct a more perfect, candy-coated world.

Calling it the best new show of the fall feels too limiting, because it’s trying to be so many things to so many people. It left me dizzy from its audacity, its delight, and its occasional lack of taste. Your mileage may vary.

With American Crime, ABC and Ridley are at least trying something. That they succeed far more often than they fail is worth praise in and of itself.

Dear White People is, in other words, one of the most confident new TV comedies I’ve ever seen--and that confidence is what ends up making it so compelling.