Meredith Blake

The show is a portal to a gleaming dimension where COVID-19 has been, if not eliminated, then at least contained. ... The bakers this season are a reassuringly familiar mix of established “Bake Off” types. ... The episode culminates in an endearingly bonkers showstopper challenge that, in its utterly harmless way, captures the mind-bending weirdness of the last few months without piercing the joyful “GBBO” bubble.

The good news is that you don’t have to know anything about “Sons of Anarchy” to watch “Mayans M.C.” — though fans of the earlier series will be pleased by a few brief cameos in the pilot. The bad news is that even if you’re a newbie to the Sutter-verse, the series may feel overly familiar despite its inclusive bent.

In short, Big Little Lies is as glossy and superficially well-packaged as the very community it aims to skewer but ultimately guilty of the same corrosive emptiness. Though highly bingeable and at times bitingly funny, the series is also patently ridiculous and riddled with pernicious stereotypes of henpecked husbands and scheming mean-girl mothers who use their children as pawns.

It is a worthy, highly watchable effort. While a bit tonally uneven in early episodes and not especially groundbreaking--it is, at its core, yet another legal procedural--Doubt is elevated by witty banter and a stellar supporting cast.

A disorienting labyrinth of a show that's as seductive and visually arresting as it is frustrating.

Unfortunately, the gimmicks and the solid cast aren't enough to elevate the ho-hum storytelling. The cases at the center of each episode aren't especially engrossing.

Superior Donuts has the potential to be something special and groundbreaking. Instead, it’s just another plain-glazed TV show--too sweet and empty in the middle.

In a way that can only be described as Rhimesian, The Quad burns through outrageous plot twists with a breezy disregard for plausibility. The series lacks the polish or stylistic panache of a “Scandal,” and its rougher edges can make some of the more outlandish narrative turns--think murder, assault and blackmail--seem both clunky and decidedly absurd.

Iit’s a deeply unsettling look at childhood mental illness, the blurred line between the virtual and real, and the potency of internet memes.

If you make it this far [the tragic third-act twist], you may be moved by Menzel’s characteristically volcanic rendition of “Wind Beneath My Wings.” More likely, you’ll just cry from boredom.