Ben Travers

The latest edition may be glossed up with star power, but there’s no resonance. Sometimes that’s OK, so long as you don’t hope to find anything more.

Season 3 is a joyless exercise that’s nonetheless an improvement on the wayward Season 2. Not only does the opening hour pay off on the eight episodes of build-up that first aired two years ago, but the ensuing half-season benefits from the focus and unification lent by the results. (Four episodes were provided for review.)

Tannahill’s series cherishes dancing between the demanding allure of the unknown and the fearful certainty of what can happen when pursuing it. Hall knows the steps inside and out, crafting a layered, knowing character who never feels as abstract as the world around her, and Bravo breaks up many steady, static frames with dreamy, hypnotic imagery to better illustrate Claire’s slackening tether to reality.

Beyond Gabriella, new characters never develop beyond props, as “Lestat” too closely mirrors its namesake’s narcissism. (The band is named The Vampire Lestat and, fittingly, the other band-members couldn’t matter less.) But if you can give yourself over to his melody, Lestat repays your indulgence with complete immersion. .... It’s rare to find television bold enough to commit as fully as “The Vampire Lestat” does, and rarer still to see a performer as magnetic and multifaceted as Reid to carry it through.

It’s all too tempting to wish “Alice and Steve” would settle into a slightly awkward yet easy-going sitcom. Instead, it’s intent on showing why such seismic relationship shifts don’t always settle into a viable groove.

“Cape Fear” benefits greatly from its deep cast (CCH Pounder plays Anna’s money-hungry boss, Jamie Hector is her formerly incarcerated colleague, and Ron Perlman shows up late as Max Cady’s very bad dad)… even if every cast member doesn’t always benefit from the show.

The potential glimpsed in the first season of “The Four Seasons” remains stubbornly out of reach in Season 2.

That the series houses its mad science experiments and cartoonish fight scenes in familiar packaging goes a long way toward keeping it accessible, but the charming eccentricities and their astute implementation add up to a Spider-story worth investing in — bring on the strange.

Disgusting? You bet. But there’s nothing in “Mating Season” that would stir the kind of passion that warrants calling the cops — or even animal control.

The overall execution is solid (everything makes way more sense than recent “average folks do crime” shows like “Big Mistakes” and “Imperfect Women.”), the cast is charming (shout-out to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ son, Charlie Hall, for escaping Ryan Murphy-land), and the parallels between Paula’s experience and our own prove unmistakable, persuasive, and cathartic.