Mom is back for a third season on Thursday night, and the sitcom has really found its comic groove. Also its tragic groove. Because that’s the way Mom works--its present-day laughs are always threatened by fragile futures and haunted pasts.

Show creator Julian Fellowes has defeated jaded skepticism again.

Anne with an E both stands apart from the 1985 Anne and connects to it in its openhearted eagerness. McNulty gives an exceptionally deft, nuanced performance that is the equal of any adult performance I’ve seen on television this year. Beautifully shot, and full of marvelous supporting performances, Anne with an E is a fresh version of Anne of Green Gables that newcomers and cult fans can enjoy equally.

This show is guided by sitcom pros, but it doesn’t feel like an old-pro show at all. It doesn’t go for easy or cheap laughs, and most of its scenes don’t follow the usual sitcom trajectory--instead, they take odd twists and turns.

For a premiere, this Late Show was exceedingly polished yet loose-limbed.

The show works as a comedy, as a satire of the way certain people live now and of the true-crime genre in its search for Chantal. Search Party’s half-hour episodes zip by so quickly, you’ll probably binge on them sometime during the upcoming holiday.

The voice-over commentary that’s most valuable comes from musicians such as Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, who deeply understand Presley’s music and motivations, and critics who’ve thought long and hard about Elvis, like Nik Cohn and writer turned producer Jon Landau. ... You’ll have your own moments of discovery. Elvis works his way on everyone individually.

Review remains one of the most entertaining, and occasionally quite moving, shows on television.

The show sells us on the idea that pretty, wide-smiling Teresa can become a capable, even vicious, defender of her own hide when threatened, and that Queen of the South might be able to tell a familiar story in a fresh way. The first hour has been beautifully directed by Charlotte Sieling, with lots of lulling silences between action scenes, creating an atmosphere in which anything--any deal, any conversation, any room--can explode at any moment.

I thought I was heartily sick of gloomy, gritty TV shows, but engaging ones can’t help but pull me in. After watching three episodes of Taboo, I think I’m officially in.

Rendered without much embellishment and acted with firmly controlled vigor, Killing Jesus, a TV adaptation of the bestselling book by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, is a fine retelling of the story of Jesus Christ as a historical figure.

Raucous and loony and adroit and lewd, 7 Days in Hell is one odd comedy.

Each of Fleabag’s six episodes is a tightly-composed variation on her character’s wild, bad-girl humor, and her personal (especially sexual) and professional frustration.

The documentary is never less than engaging, but as a piece of filmmaking, it’s rather shapeless. Now the deaths of Fisher and Reynolds give it an unintended shape and purpose. It captures these two extremely vital spirits in the very recent past, and makes you feel the loss of them even more sharply.

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.

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.

You don’t have to be rich to feel the agony of Madoff’s victims, and Wizard shrewdly transcends the the-rich-are-people-too genre by making Madoff’s family drama seem universal.

Diana, Our Mother is a very touching and forthright hour spent with the sons and other people who knew Diana.

A remarkable cast. ... Girlfriends trades on some standard older-ladies-doing-wacky-things humor, but that’s just to put you at ease.

It gets better with each episode--and it’s not as though Wednesday night’s premiere isn’t very funny.

Aquarius and show creator McNamara take a daring leap and presume that Manson saw Wilson as a judgmental father-figure, and that notion that complicated their relationship. It’s just one example of the psychologically complex show McNamara continues to build with Aquarius.

This first episode is such accomplished, vigorous fun, I highly recommend that you give it a look. I also guarantee you’ll wince a few times at what Nick goes through, and you’ll be glad he’s now got a chipper Happy in his life.

The infernally clever, multiple-Emmy'd producer Bertram van Munster has found a way to make even a dating-game theme interesting.

It’s a show that’s structured like a sitcom but frequently works like a low-stakes drama that just gets more emotionally expensive. After you’ve watched all 10, Love stays with you like a memory you can’t--or don’t want to--shake.

Two hour-plus stand-up specials premiere on Netflix today, and they’re both very good, one better than the other. ... The Age of Spin is a brilliantly organized concert that’s structured around O.J. Simpson.

I’ll keep checking it out for its incidental pleasures. A lot of Baskets’s best humor is totally random

The exhilarating thing about Difficult People is that it consists of aggressive insult humor that’s rooted in a friendship that’s all heart.

The pleasant surprise is that this new Exorcist, as conceived by writer Jeremy Slater, is both well-acted and at times quite disturbing.