Daniel D'Addario

Strange, strained and ultimately boring series.

The ultimate mixed-bag show at this point in its run, but a show that will always be worth watching for the surprises it can still conjure — worthwhile. It’s not the things we know it can do well, but the moments when the show seems even to be surprising itself.

It’s an unbearable watch for anyone outside the Pauls’ core fandom. .... Repellent and noxiously loud, “Paul American” confuses volume — ostentatiousness, relentlessness, shamelessness — for star quality.

There isn’t enough here to justify the running time, nor its star’s belief we’ll keep watching. The show plays out like a forced march, one in which Meghan’s guests must, as the price of getting to share an afternoon in a made-for-TV kitchen with her, praise her first.

[Alec Baldwin] emerges from the pilot of “The Baldwins” (which is all that was sent to critics for review) not quite brought low, but diminished. .... And sometimes he even says something that lands in a place of uncomfortable truth. “I would do anything for my children,” he tells the camera as the episode ends. The existence of “The Baldwins” proves that to be true.

DeGeneres is on steadiest ground in this special when discussing the universally relatable. .... But to allude to having been maltreated and “thrown out of show business” while dancing around what exactly happened on her set requires both nimbleness and a bit of nerve. “For Your Approval” is, in the end, a frustrating watch, and a bum note to go out on.

In utterly disavowing his own work even as it’s happening, Rogan shows that, for all he may have the trappings of a marquee Netflix comic, he lacks a fundamental quality the best comics share: Courage.

Alongside Moss, Moura as the journalist aiding her, and Jamie Bell as the personification of human venality pursuing her, do fine work. But there’s simply not enough story here to make for a credible eight-episode series, which means that things lumber when they should soar, and every story point is overexamined.

The first five episodes of its first season are generally strong, if crowded with much work to do to get us to know these characters. I suspect its third season might be really something.

Max presents a strung-together list of fun moments that may justify how much time fans have spent with the characters to this point, and convince them not to lose interest. To care enough to sit through all three hours, though, one would have to be an uncommonly committed die-hard in the first place.