Thelma Adams

Her take on the fallacy of the empty nest is fresh. .... Horgan also writes female raunchy outrageously. This is not your mother’s menopause.

While the crime drama isn’t must-see watercooler television, the show bops along with a pleasing rhythm, modest plot puzzles and a jaunty heroine brought to life by the charismatic Spiridakos.

You don’t have to be anhedonic to embrace “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: An Almost History of America,” the seven-episode limited sketch comedy series that Larry David cooked up with that beacon of hope and culture maven President Barack Obama. Oddly enough, with the help of co-creator Jeff Schaffer, they make beautiful comedy together.

Whether in Manhattan or Montana, both places seem to be fictional baloney. Pfeiffer, Russell and the cast do their best, but it’s a challenge to act believable in such an entirely rigged reality.

The creator Thomas Brandon (“Legacies”) and his writers’ penchant for time shifts — two hours ago, eleven months before, yesterday — can make the complicated plot hard to follow and lead to binging vertigo. And yet, it satisfies our spy TV jones, and Liu passes the test as a dynamic leading man.

Sure, there’s a corpse at the contemporary thriller’s center, and a killer, and a kooky cop. But the fun is in watching Biel and Banks stretch out and strut in complicated roles with ample opportunity to demonstrate their acting chops.

There are some awkward bends in this “Long Bright River,” but with its strong sense of place, sequences of ride-along policing and twisted sisters storyline, it’s a must for lovers of female-driven dysfunctional family crime dramas.

It doesn’t break new ground. It’s akin to “Dragnet” — nothing but the facts — or the original “Hawaii Five-0” or “Adam-12.” The real weakness is the characters’ softness and lack of complexity.

The costumes, production design, score, and tableau are equal to the razzle dazzle of “Peaky Blinders.” While there isn’t the galvanizing gangster family saga fueled by charismatic Cillian Murphy’s kingpin Tommy Shelby that propelled Knight’s series to top 100 status on the IMDB TV charts, “A Thousand Blows” lands its punch, making for killer television.

The script is smart, if not exactly sharp. There’s occasional humor. .... Of the large cast, Jeffrey Wright stands out. .... He [Michael Fassbender] fails to ignite the necessary chemistry with Sami, despite obligatory explicit sex scenes.