Tom Long

This is a Tim Burton production, so it looks great. But looks wouldn't matter if Jenna Ortega's deadpan wasn’t just as elastic as it needed to be — she consistently pushes outside the caricature enough to keep things lively.

"The White Lotus" is still a buzz of capitalist hypocrisy, absurd indulgence, clueless privilege and mordant wit. The beautiful people have changed for the most part, but the abundant anxieties and kinks beneath their shiny surfaces are apparently universal.

There’s tons of pseudo-scientific cyberpunk gobbledygook, of course, but Smith keeps things moving and pretense falls to the wayside. ... “The Peripheral” is dead center fun.

Obviously "Shantaram" is your basic sprawling story set in an exotic location with an internationally diverse cast. It repeats itself, occasionally flies in the face of plausibility, and has a tendency to stagger instead of sprint. But Hunnam charges through it all, determined to bring the essentially flawed Lin to life. Ultimately he succeeds.

As the show flies by, the nightly scare stories work more effectively than the lumbering haunted house stuff, and of course all of this is housed in a Young Adult world that may be a bit gory but is essentially wholesome.

There’s no question Hollywood loves to look at itself and a TV show about a TV show is more than a bit indulgent. But audiences also like to look at Hollywood and “Reboot” at least manages to be witty and entertaining.

"Devil" is one of Netflix’s light-horror excursions, nothing too gory or sexy. ... It’s messy TV but, really, you can’t go too wrong with devil worshipers.

It’s all very efficient, well-made television, but just as it’s lacking in fun it’s lacking in fire.

If you make it through the messy early episodes, “League” turns out to be a sweet show and downright wholesome in its own way.

“The Sandman” stands out visually. A parade of fine actors — Joely Richardson, Charles Dance, Stephen Fry — weave in and out, with David Thewlis particularly strong as an escaped mental patient. Still, the show remains comic-book thin on character and plot conveniences are everywhere. “The Sandman” dreams of being more than it is, but it’s still pretty good.