Michael Slezak

After three-and-a-half hours of action, The Get Down‘s tone still seems to be a work in progress--not that there’s anything inherently wrong with a “hey, there’s even a kitchen sink!” melding of genres. The good news is that Ezekiel’s poetry and Mylene’s pipes are so undeniable, you’ll relate to the former’s optimistic English teacher (Treme’s luminous Yolonda Ross).

While you shouldn’t look for American Gothic to enter the Emmy conversation in the history of ever, that’s simply not the point of it. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a weird, sometimes eerie distraction that won’t require rewinding if a few lines of dialogue get downed out by the air conditioner, CBS’ newest offering might be a summer series that slays.

BrainDead manages to be intermittently intriguing just through the sheer strangeness of its premise not to mention the sparkling chemistry Winstead exhibits both with Tveit and Semine. And in a different series, Pino’s cheerful, adulterous, win-at-all-costs politico could’ve been downright fascinating. Ultimately, though, like the inside-the-beltway white matter that gets consumed by those little alien critters and winds up turning to pink goo, BrainDead goes splat under the weight of its outsized aspirations.

Perhaps some day Chelsea will inspire a fascinating intellectual discussion about the perils of noisily promising something new on the late-night scene, then delivering the TV equivalent of an ancient burlap grocery sack: a good idea in its infancy, perhaps, but now on the brink of everything imminently falling out of the bottom with a messy splat.

Unfortunately, you won’t need to get past the second commercial break of the pilot episode to realize you’re watching the most banal type of procedural, dressed up in garish period costumes and clogged with faith-versus-science questions that get explored with all the depth and nuance of a political debate on The View.

What’s fascinating--and disappointing--about Confirmation is that we somehow manage to learn more about Hill in the recreation of scenes that are essentially dramatic re-enactments of C-Span clips you can watch right now on YouTube. That leaves about an hour and a half of bloodless storytelling that ping-pongs from law offices to congressional corridors to Thomas’ living room.

As the stakes of their revenge pact rise higher, and their ingenuity and morality get tested against seemingly unbeatable foes, don’t be surprised if you’re less and less bothered by the little fumbles in writing as you get more and more engrossed in the bigger picture.

Unfortunately, The Detour too often confuses the obvious for the outrageous, and mistakes hacky-ness for hilarity.

The Girlfriend Experience proves more interesting than engrossing, perhaps because there doesn’t seem to be a single character willing to raise his or her voice above library-corridor volume, connect in any way that’s not ultimately about money or power, or overtly express the possible negative side effects of selling your body for cash.

Grease‘s live audience and inconsequential snafus served to underscore its meticulous production and allowed us to get swept up in a joyous and uniformly powerful set of performances.