Nancy DeWolf Smith

"My Brilliant Friend" has returned for a second season more affecting, in an alarming way, than the first, though in every way just as impressive in its penetrating portraiture of Elena (Margherita Mazzucco) and Lila (Gaia Girace), the friends at the center of this tale set in 1950s Naples, based on Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels.

Unnervingly vivid and rich. ... Quibbles aside, it’s hard to imagine a more rewarding five hours of television than this encyclopedically detailed chronicle of an accused Nazi war criminal whose prolonged courtroom battles, which ended only with his death in 2012, said so much about the ineradicable memory of the history he represented.

You don’t need to have seen the two seasons of HBO’s drama “Looking” to enjoy the movie that wraps things up now that the series has ended.

If the series were only about the doe-eyed and inscrutable Naz, it would be interesting enough. But it is bursting with other characters and heart-ripping portraits and morality playlets with a life of their own. The main attraction is the disheveled lawyer Jack Stone (John Turturro, in a mind-blowing performance).

The task of holding things together under this assault and others will fall to the amiable tour manager, Bill (Luke Wilson, awkwardly cast as a Lothario) and the production manager, Shelli (Carla Gugino)--who are supposed to have some chemistry between them but don’t seem to spark. ... Almost crushed beneath the farce are small moments that seem genuine.

As summer indulgences go, Guilt--made by a team that includes the writers, creators and co-executive producers Kathryn Price and Nichole Millard--is like the paperback you avidly consume on the beach.

Watching Messrs. Hopkins and McKellen in the full expression of their powers--in a TV setting but stagelike enough to be a stellar showcase--is a treat as good as the play itself.

The Night Manager is a treat. ... For all its locations, the storytelling canvas is somehow small. And there are some ludicrous plot holes and twists which nudge the The Night Manager in a campy Bond direction. But it never strays near comedy, which makes the six episodes pretty much a nonstop fear-fest.

After the static and bloodless world of “The Girlfriend Experience,” the Showtime comedy Dice is like an explosion of heat and vigor and passion.

The characters are so vapid and thinly drawn that they glide like silhouettes through the minimalist stylings of a series crafted without affect.