Chris Vognar

It’s funny and it’s scary, but it’s never simply either, or even simply both. Even when “Widow’s Bay” cheekily remixes horror tropes, it feels like its own thing. It’s hard to classify, which is about the nicest thing I can say about a new series.

Built around four performances of almost feral intensity, “Half Man” is the rare series that I wish had stayed just a little bit longer. That means I was drawn deep into its unflagging intensity, and I also wanted it to stick a smoother landing.

A very Kelley piece of work: a little old-fashioned and a little newfangled, slickly entertaining, witty and casually progressive.

This is a well-oiled comedy machine. It’s also fast, another quality it shares with screwballs of yore. The storytelling is good enough, with some clever turns and a nice amount of the aforementioned character transformation. But the quality of the writing stands out more within each scene than over the narrative arc.

It’s a handsomely mounted, passionate, and convincing piece of filmmaking. It also helped me readjust my own thinking on Thoreau, about whom I hold views more ambivalent than the rhapsodies on display here.

Delivered in brisk, 25-minute episodes, “Bait” emerges as a portrait of a nervous breakdown brought to you by the entertainment-industrial complex, rendered with bustling London street energy and a touch of absurdist wit. The series is bursting with ideas, sometimes more than it knows what to do with. .... But “Bait” never feels derivative; it has a pulsating urban energy and ribald family dynamic all its own.

My unsolicited advice to “SNL UK,” which streams stateside on Peacock? Be yourself. Don’t be too slavish to your American counterpart, which currently feels a little flabby and rudderless. That freedom that allows you to drop F-bombs? Use it to create some truly dangerous comedy.

The new season of “The Comeback” thrives largely on the very human art of casting. Kudrow, of course, is pitch-perfect, as are returning cast members including Damian Young as Valerie’s mopey husband, Mark, and Laura Silverman as her dogged documentarian, Jane. But the bit players are the scene stealers here.

“Rooster” thrives on the tension between Carell’s self-deprecating likability and Greg’s relative boorishness.

“Vladimir,” based on Julia May Jonas’ 2022 novel, is ultimately Weisz’s show, and she carries it capably, often by addressing the viewer through the fourth wall.