John Anderson

It’s a particular pleasure to watch Greater Futbol so deliciously roasted by “Twenty Twenty Six.” The six-part comedy may bleep out every mention of “FIFA” and “Cup.” But it does so with satirical glee.

“Man on Fire” might not venture into unknown narrative territory, but Mr. Abdul-Mateen puts an unapologetically anti-heroic spin on a movie cliché—the purveyor of justice—and makes him new. To some degree, the variations are what keep us intrigued. But there’s depth to the performances, too. And heat.

Watch “Asterix & Obelix,” “Les Visiteurs” and “Omar et Fred,” and the cult of Jerry Lewis makes sense. So does “Flunked.” .... Ms. Medina, playing the flustered, overtaxed Tiphaine, is terrific, as is Ms. Arné, whose Lucie has to toggle from hard-boiled detective to strategy-free investigator. Mr. Kominek is more difficult to read; his comedy roots are showing and his role, as written, is less a well-defined character than a vehicle for lowbrow humor.

He [creator Jonathan Glatzer] avoids the mistake here that he and the other writers made with “Succession”: You don’t hate everyone. Mr. Magnussen’s performance, indelible and relentless, will define the warped values of a Musky-Zuck era for those inclined to hate it anyway.

The consistent tone of “Big Mistakes” is rancor. Unrelieved. All of it umbrella-ed by a title that invites Morelli-style snark.

Despite the finality with which episode 2 concludes—I really thought the series was over and wasn’t unhappy—episode 3 is actually the most engaging of the chapters, being about Thoreau’s life as a surveyor, explorer, advance man for Charles Darwin, unflinching abolitionist and ally and interlocutor of John Brown. .... Most remarkably, Jeff Goldblum, who as Thoreau abandons anything associated with standard Jeff Goldblum and creates a vocal character full of self-reflection, naïveté and awe.

There’s a lot going on, including a spinning of wheels. It may not be “very bad,” I hasten to add, but the “something very bad” in “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen” is the pumping of 10 gallons of horror into a 5-gallon vehicle, which never really catches fire and whose wheels fall off.

Once Mr. August gets us past his very soft and charmless introduction, his version gains momentum. Especially when Edmond goes to prison.

An affectionately made five-part series that takes neither the sport nor itself too seriously. One of the more amusing things about it is Mr. Schreiber, who seems intent on echoing the kind of voiceover heard in the educational films of yesteryear, with a deliberately mellow, vaguely pontifical tone, albeit with an ironic twist.

Purely as entertainment, it is inert; the story, about a family in mourning, features histrionics worthy of grand opera and a level of rudeness that could peel paint.