Jason Zinoman

The funniest and most fully realized comedy hour so far this year.

The first half of the special features his traditional standup, which is predictable and messy, full of hot takes on Bill Maher and Charlie Kirk. .... At one point, Chappelle asks the crowd if they are bored. They aren’t, because Chappelle is an undeniably magnetic speaker who is circling ideas about systemic racism, surveillance and the virtue of doubt.

Sherman’s insight is that the essential overlap between body horror and gross-out humor is gratuitousness. Every moment is too much. The sexuality, the violence, the imagery, the tastelessness. Even her more ordinary jokes go on and on, long enough that that becomes the joke. It all works because she’s a Tasmanian devil of a performer whose momentum leads toward nonsense.

The climax involves a fight with his father over a political joke Birbiglia told. .... The show is about coming to grips with this charged meeting, a reframing of it. It leaves us with the knowledge that we never really understand our parents. And why would we? We were all absent during their formative years.

Despite its subject matter, this new hour is, in some ways, classic Silverman terrain, with raunchy bits and Hitler references. I wouldn’t even call it her most personal special. .... She pays tribute to the memory of her parents through descriptions in loving detail.

His new hour has more laughs per minute than his recent work, and his attention-getting premises, among them children’s funerals, aren’t as sad as you might think. But conventional stand-up alternates now with confessional long thoughts, about the details of being in an open relationship or the cultural meaning of D’Angelo. There’s more comedy in the former, and more freshness in the latter; still, he hasn’t entirely figured out how to fuse them.

Rosebud Baker’s breakout new hour finds meaning in this benign deception, weaving together a performance from when she’s eight months pregnant and another one after she had the baby. .... Her hard-bitten, cynical persona provides a nice juxtaposition to how maudlin so much commentary about motherhood can be.

This hour, both funny and bleak, does not specialize in topical political bits, but jokes that build a broader, deeper argument: Less newspaper editorial, more magazine essay.

Knockout new special.

His most amusing moments involve his gift for impressions. .... But this isn’t a stand-up special so much as a celebration, an act of gratitude and the kind of emotive video often posted on Instagram.