Spencer Kornhaber

The show demystifies him in the workmanlike way that today’s cinematic universes inevitably treat their bit players: by turning them into boring old heroes. ... But look to the margins, to the creatures who aren’t saying much, for the saga’s future, because they still hold the promise of stories that, just maybe, we haven’t been told before.

A wacky premise and judging panel (will.i.am, Alanis Morissette, Nick Lachey, and the “musician, innovator” Grimes) just disguise the same schmaltz and strained belting that have been common on network TV ever since American Idol premiered in 2002.

A a mournful mishmash of a ceremony that only emphasized its dark context. ... It was a celebration suited to an Olympics that many aren’t sure should exist at all. ... The moments that drew viewers into rapture were outnumbered by jolts back into distressing reality. More egregiously, the four-hour ceremony devoted multiple minutes to John Lennon’s “Imagine” as arranged by Hans Zimmer and sung by performers around the world, including the overexposed celebrities John Legend and Keith Urban.

Charming. ... Hulu’s High Fidelity does, refreshingly, correct the exclusionary spirit that went with the original’s lack of diversity. Yet crucially, the series retains the assurance that music preferences reflect something individual, ineffable, soul-deep, and in need of sharing.

Extremely uneven but often-lovable 10-episode comedy series.

Like its predecessor, the documentary is a piece of workmanlike TV that relies on restless editing, conspicuous background music, and repetition, with talking heads providing both sharp insight and familiar platitudes. ... There’s no denying the force of the material here nor of the ambitious, decades-spanning, multi-angle tale that the series tells.

Irresistible, even as the rap competition recycles American Idol’s clichés. ... Cardi is the show’s most reliable entertainment. Her flamboyant outfits and voices—she’s lately loved affecting a mafia-don mumble—liven up the first two episodes. But she’s also Rhythm + Flow’s voice of reason, verging on cynicism. ... The other judges also come off as constructed characters who embody specific reads on what’s good and bad hip-hop.

Transparent has always been about surviving cataclysms and leaning into change. “Musicale Finale” makes a bighearted attempt along those lines, if not an entirely successful one. Songs written by Soloway’s sister Faith pleasantly sing-rather-than-show a series of final transformations for the characters. The lyrics get so hyperbolic as to seem trolling, but there’s just not much drama. Fine actors who once expressed complex emotions in charmingly messy cross talk now spend too much time shouting out slogans as if they were Elsa of Arendelle. The ideas powering the show remain interesting, though.

Queer Eye’s formula—manipulative and effective, awkward and transcendent—remains the same as before, but the emphasis on the Fab Five as individuals does change the series’ value proposition somewhat. ... With the intensifying spotlight, though, the guys—and all they represent—have thankfully come to seem more three-dimensional.

The Homecoming movie’s combo of well-edited stage spectacle and behind-the-scenes segments—intimate, hard-fought, occasionally tense, politically explicit, personally specific segments—make it a career-defining document.