The main subplots of Bosch gather power as they proceed.

Irritating and fascinating, The Slap is unlike anything else on network TV.

I can’t say that there are many funny jokes in Schitt’s Creek, but the show is never less than watchable, thanks in particular to Levy Sr. (playing, more or less, the show’s straight-man) and O’Hara (superb as a former soap-star villain and a real-life diva).

Better Call Saul has its own tone--it's a different, unique creation.

The filmmakers grant Durst his humanity, allowing us to see the charm, and occasional flashes of humor, that animate the man when he sometimes emerges from the fog of good fortune. In the two episodes I’ve seen, The Jinx makes good, sparing use of dramatizing some of the moments Durst describes.

Allegiance, set in the present-day, is at attempt to be a thoughtful drama about the differences between loyalty to family and loyalty to country, but its atmosphere is as drab as an early John LeCarre novel, without the prickly dialogue or tricky plotting.... And: We lost Parenthood to this?

Fresh Off The Boat, when it has flashes of energy and well-written jokes, easily transcends ethnic stereotypes, but it’s these sitcom stereotypes that are the ones the show needs to defeat if it wants to be both long-running and distinctive.

[Elizabeth is] coming to terms with her own strict upbringing, her longing for her homeland, and her profoundly ambivalent feelings about American permissiveness on the one hand, and the strict discipline of turning her own daughter over to become a tool of the Soviet state. These are the elements that come together in the fine new season of The Americans, giving it more emotional power than ever.

If you’re looking for a winter-time mystery that will show you people even colder than you may be these days, Fortitude is an absorbing one.

I could moan about how the History Channel is betraying scholarship, but you really ought not to turn to TV for history lessons anyway. What you get with Sons of Liberty is rowdy fun that ends with us Americans overthrowing foreign oppression.

The show is no masterpiece, despite the PBS rubric it falls under, but it’s dozy fun, and a nice respite from so much of the creepy, “edgy” crime dramas that continue to pop up on network TV like scary clowns.

He’s got some work to do in the pacing of the table discussions, but Wilmore’s sensibility is immediately relatable: common sense enlivened by a healthy dissatisfaction with the status quo.

There’s a lot of body-wrenching time-travel, lots of running across blasted urban landscapes, many predictable betrayals, and entirely too many melodramatic lines such as “You are going to help me change the world, Mr. Cole.”

In the three episodes I’ve seen, the literalization of Josh’s subconscious fears, hopes, and dreams works pretty well. The show is rarely laugh-out-loud funny, but it’s always engrossing and smart.

Girls is (at this point almost surprisingly) good.

There is so much quick-fire dialogue and subtle physical comedy in Togetherness, the four stars sometimes seem like a full-functioning comedy machine.

If you aren’t watching Banshee, I’d say now’s the time to climb aboard. It’s a show that’s just hitting its stride, and that stride averages about 100 miles an hour.

The Emmy-nominated Archer is one of the most satisfying comedies of any sort, its densely packed jokes contrasting with the airy, assured confidence a show achieves when its characters seem so three-dimensionally real to their audience.

The series hits the ground running, letting the viewer fill in the narrative gaps. In other words, Empire is that rare nighttime soap opera that credits its audience with understanding without a lot of tiresome explanation, and whose purpose is to entertain, to surprise, and to confuse.

Show creator Julian Fellowes has defeated jaded skepticism again.

Galavant feels like a slapped-together production that will only confirm the suspicions of heathen TV-watchers who think most musicals consist of flimsy stories padded out with tunes that repeat the plot developments.