Brandon Nowalk

It’s an accomplished pilot with tons of promise that introduces so much that it doesn’t have time to reveal many retrograde or complacent attitudes (not to mention fashions).

Cleverman is full of potential. It just takes all season to embrace it.

With a visual palette of dim neutrals and its only modes of darkness being dour realism and harmless fantasy, Damien suggests nothing so much as a hotel bar. Its death sequences are hit or miss when it comes to horror, but at least they display some imagination.

Becoming Mike Nichols gets the job done. It finds a spine to Nichols’ directing, and it creates a desire to revisit his entire filmography. The movie itself isn’t much, a hands-off documentary that’s mainly a filmed stage performance, the performance being Nichols’ final interview over two nights and the stage being the site of An Evening With Mike Nichols And Elaine May.

The mechanical storytelling is insurmountable even for such a talented cast, but there is some satisfaction in watching Ben Whishaw sit down for an informal interrogation by Charlotte Rampling or feel out a scoundrel and potential ally played by Mark Gatiss.

Naturally it prepares for its own end like a pro, not with sound and fury but with moments and gestures that recommit to the show’s belief in the dignity and absurdity of life, made all the more poignant by the knowledge that this is the end. The gravity of death and the parade of life combine to give Getting On an uncommon mood.

The result is monotony. Season one spiced up its mood with a pungent mix of buddy-cop comedy, surreal horror, and mystery. Season two is serious people doing serious things all the time. None of these characters have ever found anything funny in their lives, and none of them have anything interesting to offer one another (or us) beyond solving the case.

With 10 episodes this season, Please Like Me has filled out beautifully.

Already there’s a wistfulness underneath the light surface. Half the scenes in the pilot are rooted in sadness, and the other half are rooted in Eliza aggressively covering up for her sadness. Eliza may seem vapid, and Selfie may seem broad, but there’s more to this one than meets the eye.

Scorpion feels like a world cut down to types.