Judy Berman

The mix of innovation and bloat yields a show that is both better than you might expect and disappointing in the same ways that most film-to-TV adaptations are. Where it does excel, so much so as to almost single-handedly warrant the project, is in its casting. No actor is more suited to remake Max Cady in his own image than Javier Bardem.

An alternately rollicking and gutting work of apocalyptic camp. .... Lestat becomes, like its predecessor, an empathetic portrait of an immortal monster with human psychology.

A generous interpretation of all this would be that Kaling— who’d been on a hot streak with Never Have I Ever, The Sex Lives of College Girls, and Running Point—is saying every generation has to make its own mistakes, no matter the institutional guardrails. That may well be true. But it doesn’t mean TV scripts should sound as oblivious as the green characters that populate them.

Sadly, The Boroughs also shares with Stranger Things a tendency to stop developing characters and relationships after efficient introductions. (The exception is Wally, a gay man whose memories of the AIDS crisis complicate his every choice.) Instead, both shows keep adding portentous but vague themes until so many ideas have been articulated that only the most anodyne takeaways survive.

Maslany is the dynamic center of a story that twists in unexpected directions, giving Paula enough intelligence, warmth, and edginess to make her character cohere. Around her, Rosen builds an ensemble out of well-matched duos, drawn in enough detail to give the series potential beyond its first season.

It’s one of the increasingly uneven hit’s best episodes in ages, a standalone that fleshes out a crucial relationship and suggests how much better the show could be with Carmy on the sidelines.

The Other Bennet Sister adapts Janice Hadlow’s 2020 novel into a light yet thoughtful romantic comedy that is bound to delight fans of the genre, anyone experiencing Bridgerton withdrawal, and even, I think, those hard-to-please Janeites.

Bolstered by poetic visuals and stunning performances from the young cast, Thorne’s psychological approach offers profound insight into the unconscious impulses that underlie our current political crises.

Where other actors might play the part of a straight man surrounded by hysterical weirdos, well, straight, Rhys is always dropping hints that Tom’s sanity is more fragile than it looks. Yet the show is more a jumble of stylish allusions and skillful performances than it is a transformative work unto itself.

I came out moved—devastated, really—but ambivalent about whether its payoff had been worth the pain.