Kathryn VanArendonk

Stuart Fails is painful at nearly every turn, a grim death march through a series of overworn jokes and wall-spaghetti plotting made even less fun with each smugly metafictional turn.

There is absolutely no good reason to watch Netflix’s new golf comedy, The Hawk.

Many things work in Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’s favor, distinguishing it from some of the duller comps in the past several years. (Apple TV’s leaden The Last Thing He Told Me immediately comes to mind.) Maslany is the first and most crucial.

Even when it’s not being sweet, or when Nicky and Morgan are sincerely terrified about what’s happening to them, the criminal, drug-kingpin-related trappings around them are so heightened and silly that Big Mistakes can’t help but come across as mostly a fun time.

The Soames/Irene story remains the best thing about this new adaptation. .... But this Forsytes can’t fully commit to throwing out the original plot and remaking it as a Downton wannabe, even though that might have made for a better, more coherent series.

For now everything’s pulling together toward the same end goal, and the result is giddy and thrilling, the best Bridgerton has been since its first season.

It’s almost worth watching as a sicko-mode voyeur, since the series is so disjointed and elliptical that it approaches anomaly and spectacle. But for viewers seeking entertainment, The Abandons makes it too easy to, well, abandon it.

Crouched in a defensive posture, Red Alert and One Day in October are responding to an argument they’re not naming, even as they try to appear bold. .... One Day in October holds up Taasa’s grief like a blinding torch, so bright and overwhelming that the thousands of grieving parents who live mere miles from her have been obscured. Occasionally, though — in Red Alert especially — the camera drifts over to a shot of Gaza, shining high-rises looming in the distance.

Crouched in a defensive posture, Red Alert and One Day in October are responding to an argument they’re not naming, even as they try to appear bold. .... One Day in October holds up Taasa’s grief like a blinding torch, so bright and overwhelming that the thousands of grieving parents who live mere miles from her have been obscured. Occasionally, though — in Red Alert especially — the camera drifts over to a shot of Gaza, shining high-rises looming in the distance.

English Teacher is a well-made show featuring strong comedic actors who haven’t yet gotten major breakout roles, and its second season proves the first was not a fluke. .... There’s a real sadness in putting a giant bummer asterisk next to one of the few good ones.