TV #17 of 2024: Star Trek: Lower Decks, season 3 This season starts out a little slowly, but it certainly hits its stride again by the end, with the episode set on Deep Space Nine and the one with the unexpected return of wayward ensign Peanut Hamper as particular formula-breaking standouts. At its best — …
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TV #13 of 2024: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, season 1 I went into this latest Star Trek series with fairly low expectations. In addition to being another prequel in a franchise that could stand to be more forward-facing, it is moreover a direct spin-off from the messiest season of Star Trek: Discovery. On paper, …
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TV #11 of 2024: Star Trek: Picard, season 2 Not great, but a noticeable step up from the blandly underwritten chaos of this modern Star Trek show’s first season. Picard’s old superpowered tormentor Q is as maddeningly inscrutable as ever, but bringing him into play as the new big bad for the year is a …
TV #9 of 2024: Star Trek: Discovery, season 4 While this latest season of Star Trek: Discovery may not be quite as bad as its dire second year, which burned through an astonishing degree of terrible impulses, it’s decidedly more creatively bereft. We’re still in the future timeline (where it appears the show will be …
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TV #5 of 2024: Star Trek: Prodigy, season 1 This animated program gets better as its first year goes on, but I remain confused about who exactly the target audience is supposed to be. On the one hand: the tone is fairly YA, the majority of the main characters are young teens (or the alien …
TV #48 of 2023: Wednesday, season 1 A pitch-perfect Addams Family update, made even stronger by the choice to focus on the title character alone. While her relatives are also included on the series, they’re generally relegated to a few quick scenes that are charming but don’t overstay their welcome, a structure that allows the …
TV #2 of 2023: Bob’s Burgers, season 12 I’m not quite caught up on Bob’s Burgers — there’s the block that’s currently airing, plus the feature film that came out last summer yet to go. But this is the latest full season to be released, which I’m finally through after starting from the pilot and …
TV #61 of 2022: His Dark Materials, season 3 This adaptation has long struggled to capture and distill the complex themes of Philip Pullman’s classic fantasy trilogy, and this final season faces the additional hurdle of navigating the events of its most complicated volume, The Amber Spyglass. Theoretically, it’s a pretty faithful representation! The series …
TV #58 of 2022: Dead to Me, season 3 The first year of this show started off relatively grounded and serious before escalating wildly into a succession of ridiculous soap-opera twists, which then took center stage in season 2. This final run seems aimed to split the difference, with more of the identical twin / …
TV #57 of 2022: Andor, season 1 On paper, this prequel to a prequel might have sounded like a wholly unnecessary franchise extension, but in practice, Star Wars has literally never been better. Ostensibly a show about Cassian Andor five years before the movie Rogue One takes place, it has turned out to be more …
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