Amazon’s adaptation of Robert Jordan’s fourteen novel epic follows Moiraine, an Aes Sedai witch, gathering young villagers who might be the prophesied Dragon Reborn. Rosamund Pike gives it movie star gravity, and the world building is genuinely huge: cities, armies,…
Sam Levinson’s portrait of teenagers navigating addiction, love, and identity is the most visually daring show HBO has aired: makeup as armor, drug sequences as horror, and Zendaya delivering one of the great young performances as Rue, whose relapses the…
A legendary Vegas comedian past her prime hires a young writer canceled for a bad joke, and the war between them becomes the best written friendship on television. Jean Smart is operating at a level no one else touches, and…
A hitman takes an acting class and discovers he wants to be a different person, which is the funniest and darkest premise HBO has aired. Bill Hader and Henry Winger play the contradiction beautifully, a man committing murder while sincerely…
The Good Wife’s oddball lawyer moves to New York as a consent decree watchdog and starts outthinking NYPD homicide detectives while wearing joyfully deranged outfits. Carrie Preston has been stealing scenes for fifteen years and this is her victory lap:…
Kathy Bates as a septuagenarian lawyer who joins a big firm and turns out to be playing a much longer game than anyone suspects. The title is a bait and switch: this is not a reboot, it is a stealth…
Kaitlin Olson plays a single mom of three with a 160 IQ who cleans police stations until she solves a case on a whiteboard, and the mystery genre gets its most charming new lead. The will they won’t they with…
Justin Hartley as a survivalist who finds missing people for reward money, drifting from town to town with a backpack and a smile. It is the number one show on broadcast television, and the reason is simple: Hartley is genuinely…
Noah Wyle returns to the hospital and reinvents the medical drama: one fifteen hour shift, one episode per hour, no flashbacks, no romance subplots, just the grind of a Pittsburgh ER. It is the most realistic show about medicine ever…
Peter Morgan’s drama about Queen Elizabeth II’s reign is the gold standard of the Netflix prestige era. Each two season block recasts the royals, Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, Imelda Staunton, and each actress builds the same woman at a different…