Ned Ehrbar

While Frank may not be as wily as he once was, he’s still not someone you want to cross. Departing showrunner Beau Willimon is proving that while he’s leaving the show after this season, he’s leaving with a bang.

There are so many self-satisfied references to the off-screen lives of the stars and what’s happened to them in the intervening years, you might sometimes think you’re watching a “Saturday Night Live” skit version of the show.

The show’s half-hour format does a lot to recommend itself to viewers and not seem too daunting an investment of both time and brain-space. It all feels inherently easily digestible, and the hopscotching through topics keeps things fun and effervescent.

[Arthur Darvill's Rip Hunter is] definitely the best part of the show. Which is all the more aggravating when he gets sidelined for long stretches in favor of the more familiar characters.... Some things work great, though. A 1975-set bar fight involving Lotz, Miller and Purcell is quite fun, and the action in general scenes genuinely work, helping the fledgling series come together. But when the characters stand around and talk, things start to feel silly.

Fantasy fare like this generally has a pretty low bar to clear and a pretty forgiving target audience, but the heavy-handed jargon, pointy elf ears and brooding self-seriousness of The Shannara Chronicles might be too much for even those fans. It doesn’t help that the characters seem to be allowed to switch from talking dour fantasy-novel heroes to bored millennials whenever the mood strikes them.

It’s a complex protagonist, the kind we don’t see enough of on television or in studio films.... This series feels like the first superhero show really just for grown-ups--and it totally works.

Despite the 17 years that have passed since the end of “Mr. Show,” the format still works and the guys are still funny, despite not doing much to get with the times.

It is difficult to separate The Leisure Class from "Project Greenlight," and that’s probably to the film’s benefit, since it can’t stand up on its own. It’s a farce that’s not particularly farcical, a dark comedy with little humor, a screwball caper that wants to suggest great films of yesteryear without giving its own plotting and details the attention they need to work in that style. Everything feels undercooked.

An intriguing debut is marred by silly missteps, rough dialogue.

By the sixth or seventh time someone ominously intones, “It’s coming,” you’ll be just about exhausted. Some things shouldn’t necessarily be reborn.