El Kuiper

All in all, season 5 was a pleasantly surprising outing for the show. It still suffers from pacing issues and stilted, preachy dialogue, but it never slips too far into soap-opera drama or relies too strongly on intense cliffhangers.

It's a little corny; the dialogue can be cheesy, it's at times overly reliant on romance micro tropes, and it never really manages to create a distinctive atmosphere. Still, though, as far as book adaptations go, this one was clearly made with genuine love and care, and in the end, that's all anyone who enjoys reading and watching romance can really ask for.

The Other Bennet Sister is a worthy spiritual and narrative successor to Austen's most famous work, a wonderfully cozy, comforting, romantic, and uplifting new period dramedy.

Despite solid performances and appealing visuals, The Lady struggles with its narrative structure. In the first three episodes, there are two timelines in play. .... There's never any warning when The Lady switches between the two timelines, which chops up the story into small, disjointed chunks.

All in all, Vanished feels like a combination of every miniseries or made-for-TV thriller you'll have seen before.

The episodes are riddled with cheesy dialogue, predictable twists, and a handful of awkward performances. Still, it felt more grounded and realistic than some other contemporary YA dramas, and there's enough other narrative material to remain invested in Adriana and her sisters' futures, despite the lackluster love triangle.

Netflix's adaptation of Agatha Christie's Seven Dials takes a passably entertaining murder mystery and tries to raise its emotional stakes with mixed results.

What really stuck with me is that each of these characters, including Nisha, finds some form of closure. These women deserve a win, and I felt genuinely uplifted by the end of Riot Women, eager to see more.

All in all, "Secrets and Lies" was a solid enough start to the new season, giving audiences a chance to get acquainted with Eliza and Alexander's new status quo and the potential issues in their relationship. Let's hope there's more to Alexander's character than meets the eye, however, as Miss Scarlet season 6 continues.

While Harriet Herbig-Matten and Damian Hardung try their best to keep the story from veering too far off the rails — they're both very good at crying on command — anything that is good or at least decent in this season is overshadowed by its cartoonishly evil villains.