The Netflix drama gets attention for its flashy elements: a zeitgeisty focus on the manosphere, the tour-de-force acting (including from newbie Owen Cooper) and astonishing single takes. But it’s the nuances — a temperature shift during a contentious conversation, the waves of pain crashing over hard-earned moments of joy — that make this an indelible portrait of masculinity in crisis. — Angie Han
Airing as a quartet of three-episode installments leading into Rogue One, Tony Gilroy’s Disney+ upheaval of all things Star Wars is the year’s most thematically ambitious series. An exploration of the challenges of building consensus from the wreckage left by authoritarian regimes, season two is a lesson in how to make IP feel essential. — Daniel Fienberg
Joseph Bennett and Steve Hely’s animated Adult Swim dramedy is a scathing Big Pharma satire, an exercise in suspense-filled paranoia and a loopy stoner fantasia, all bound together by a superlative voice cast (David King, Emily Pendergast, Mike Judge and more) and turtle poop. It’s a decidedly weird trip that will have you gasping and giggling at the same time. — D.F.
No matter what Emmy voters think, Zahn McClarnon gives one of the best lead turns you’ll ever see on TV on the third season of AMC’s take on Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn & Chee mystery series. Adding hallucinatory horror and Jenna Elfman, the show continues our Golden Age of Airport Novel Adaptations (see also: Slow Horses, Reacher, Dept. Q). — D.F.
Kudos to HBO for producing this six-episode continuation of the indispensable civil rights docuseries, tracing the period from 1977 to 2015 and covering affirmative action, environmental and criminal justice and the Million Man March. But given that the current regime is dismantling so many of those gains, shame on HBO for barely promoting it. — D.F.
Calling this Arctic-set Netflix comedy “warm” has become a cliché, but it’s absolutely the big-hearted series we need in these soul-draining times. Anchored by instant star Anna Lambe, it’s a little Northern Exposure, a little Schitt’s Creek, a little Reservation Dogs, and wholly distinctive from anything you’ve seen before. — D.F.
Pee-wee Herman is known by millions, but the late Paul Reubens is a different story, having subsumed his identity behind his creation for much of his career. Matt Wolf’s doc attempts to capture a man reluctant to be pinned down, to relinquish the control he so fiercely guarded. The results are as revealing in what Reubens is eager to share as what he isn’t. — A.H.
It’s not that the Max medical drama is doing anything radically new. It’s that creator R. Scott Gemmill executes familiar elements at a level of competence that’s simultaneously exciting and comforting. Noah Wyle anchors a top-notch ensemble with weary gravitas, embodying the series’ profound decency as well as its frustration at a broken system. — A.H.
Nathan Fielder follows the dazzling first season of his HBO whatever-you-want-to-call-it (Comedy? Documentary? Experiment? Yes.) with a sophomore outing even more staggeringly strange. The accidental timeliness of his quest to reduce aviation disasters adds to the sense that we might all be living in one of those patented Fielder simulations. — A.H.
Industry satires are a dime a dozen, and the Seth Rogen-led Apple TV+ comedy takes aim at the usual targets: cynical IP-mining, executive penny-pinching, directors gone rogue. But it does so with unusual flair, dropping us into the New Hollywood-flavored halls of Continental Studios for an endless series of unbearably awkward, screamingly funny crises. — A.H.
This story appeared in the June 18 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
