Comedy

Thus far, Rooster has been much more of a comedy than a drama. The elusive balance that really characterises great Bill Lawrence shows like Ted Lasso and Shrinking is conspicuously absent...

It’s a testament to how good DTF St. Louis is that the cold open of Episode 4, rather drily titled “Missouri Mutual Life & Health Insurance Company”,...

Given that The Comeback has always been a show with an eerie soothsaying quality about it, it’s really no surprise that Season 3 – which...

Richard Bean’s vision of his version of Our Town may have found a financier in American Classic, but he discovers a bigger problem in Episode 5. Casting the...

Hey, I liked this one! American Classic is always going to feel like something of an acquired taste given its esoteric essential nature, but Episode...

It’s a testament to how consistently well-written the characters in Shrinking are that the broad sweep of “Depression Diet” is obvious, even when the episode...

I’ve seen some mixed opinions on Episode 5 of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, so let me just throw mine into the mix...

“Test Drive” might be the best episode of DMV yet. It’s a close-run thing, granted, largely because most of these instalments are of roughly equivalent...

DMV always being better when a guest star is involved kind of proves my point that it’s at its best when it focuses on anything...

Mark Normand has always been an equal opportunity offender, someone whose material runs the whole gamut of hot-button topics, racial stereotypes, and gender cliches, with...

Steve Carell made a handy focal point for Rooster, and his reluctant bumbling is what helped to situate us at Ludlow and get a sense...

DTF. St Louis has been pretty good since it started. Odd, sure, and unconventional enough for its ultimate destination to feel sometimes worryingly elusive. In...

After quite a long wait, One Piece Season 2 has finally arrived on Netflix to pretty glowing acclaim. Balancing the brazen weirdness of the manga...

You can’t say I didn’t tell you so. In hindsight, it was obvious that Shrinking Season 3 was going to pull the trigger on a major tragedy, and Maya was an obvious candidate. Gaby rebuffing her – entirely understandably! – was a death knell.

Well, goodness. That’s how you do a finale. The climax of One Piece Season 2 had just about everything you’d want in an ending, from...

Only one episode ago, I was saying that One Piece Season 2 utilising flashbacks was something of a novelty, so Episode 7 makes me look pretty stupid, since it’s virtually all flashbacks. But who’s complaining? “Reindeer Shames” is probably the best episode of the season, a truly lovely hour of storytelling and impressive special effects that is both wrenchingly sad and powerfully hopeful.

It occurred to me during Episode 6 of One Piece Season 2 that this is the rare show that doesn’t overindulge in flashbacks. Not that flashbacks are inherently a bad thing, obviously, especially not when something like Paradise exists. But this show’s unwillingness to rely on them is especially apparent here, since “Nami Deerest” uses them quite a lot, and it ends up feeling like a bit of a welcome novelty.

Now, this is more like. After basically sacrificing the previous episode to set up this one, One Piece Season 2 delivers pretty well on the...

The weakest hour of One Piece Season 2 thus far, Episode 4 isn’t bad, by any means, but it’s the first chapter to feel like...

The great novelty of One Piece is that it’s a show of profound, fantastical imagination, all stretchy arms and double cigars and guns in powdered...