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Imagine helping your husband run an empire for years, only for him to decide he'd rather replace you with another woman. Apparently, keeping an entire kingdom functioning counts for little when the emperor finds someone new to obsess over. THE REMARRIED EMPRESS takes that situation and builds a Korean fantasy romance around marriage, betrayal, royal politics, and a woman who's had enough of letting her husband make decisions for both of them. Based on the popular web novel and WEBTOON, the series blends romance, manipulation, and political power in a story where divorce might be the smartest decision anyone makes.

Amazon spent an unbelievable amount of money bringing Middle-earth to streaming, and after sixteen episodes of THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER, it's pretty easy to see where much of that money went. The landscapes are gorgeous, the cities are enormous, the costumes are elaborate, and practically everything looks like it belongs in the theater. What's been harder for the series is making every storyline feel like it needed that presentation. Across its first two seasons, creators J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have delivered an ambitious expansion of J.R.R. Tolkien's world, with impressive performances, some outstanding sequences, some incredible storylines, and enough questionable storytelling decisions to make the experience considerably less consistent than you’d expect.

Georgie Cooper has spent most of his life being underestimated, so watching him become one of the more responsible adults in his family is pretty entertaining. The kid who once seemed destined to spend his days getting into trouble is now running a business, raising a daughter, and trying to keep his marriage together. Unfortunately for Georgie, becoming an adult doesn't mean everyone around him will start acting like one. GEORGIE & MANDY'S FIRST MARRIAGE returns for its second season with 22 episodes of arguments, questionable decisions, business struggles, and the everyday disasters that have kept sitcoms going for decades.

Nine seasons into RICK AND MORTY, Rick Sanchez remains one of television's most intelligent men and quite possibly the last person you'd want making decisions on your behalf. Thankfully, he hasn't developed much interest in becoming a responsible adult, because watching him drag his family through increasingly ridiculous scientific disasters is still a hell of a lot of fun. Adult Swim's ninth season delivers another ten episodes of interdimensional nonsense, elaborate science-fiction concepts, uncomfortable family relationships, and jokes that probably shouldn't be repeated in polite company. It's familiar territory, but the creative team continues finding entertaining ways to make the Smith family's existence considerably more complicated than anyone else's.

Getting betrayed by your friends is bad enough, but having them attempt to murder you is probably grounds for ending the relationship... MY GIFT LVL 9999 UNLIMITED GACHA: BACKSTABBED IN A BACKWATER DUNGEON, I'M OUT FOR REVENGE! isn't interested in pretending that the insanity isn’t at the level it is. This twelve-episode anime takes a fantasy setup about an underestimated protagonist discovering an extraordinary ability and turns it into an unapologetic revenge story filled with warriors, schemes, enemies, and wonderfully excessive demonstrations of how badly people can underestimate someone. It doesn't reinvent anime, but sometimes watching a group of unpleasant individuals realize they've made a huge mistake is entertaining enough.

Living for centuries sounds like an incredible deal until you realize everyone you care about has an expiration date, and you're the unfortunate bastard who has to keep on going forever. SWORD OF THE DEMON HUNTER takes an anime premise involving supernatural creatures and extraordinary abilities. It starts with a swordsman seeking revenge, then becomes a personal examination of time, loss, and what happens when someone becomes so consumed by the past that moving forward feels impossible. Based on Motoo Nakanishi's novels, this 24-episode series combines fantasy with an unexpectedly thoughtful story about humanity. It has plenty of demon hunting, but the battles matter less than the people caught between them.

Making Lestat de Lioncourt a rockstar might be one of the most intriguing decisions made in Anne Rice's universe. After two seasons of hearing everyone else's take on his existence, the temperamental vampire finally gets to tell his own story. Naturally, a conversation wouldn't be nearly theatrical enough for him. ANNE RICE'S THE VAMPIRE LESTAT trades the intimate gothic atmosphere for an extravagant combination of rock music, excess, unresolved trauma, and some questionable personal decisions. The third season is entertaining, sometimes frustrating, and certainly unlike anything the series has seen before.

There was a long time when SOUTH PARK seemed to have settled into a stage of television longevity where everyone knew it was still around, but considerably fewer people were talking about it (see THE SIMPSONS). Trey Parker and Matt Stone hadn't exactly softened their approach. The show's increasingly sporadic release schedule and reliance on extended storylines had taken some of the excitement out of following it. Then came Season 27, Donald Trump's return to the White House, and an opening episode that reminded everyone just how spectacularly offensive this cartoon could be when its creators had something they wanted to ridicule. Suddenly, a series approaching its thirtieth anniversary was generating the sort of conversation usually reserved for a controversial new television phenomenon.

The customers wandering through SUPERSTORE sometimes explain the entire show without saying a word. Between scenes, someone misuses merchandise, abandons an inappropriate item, or behaves as though entering a large retailer has suspended the rules of public life. These brief interruptions are some of the series’ most reliable jokes. They also establish a useful fact about Cloud 9, the fictional megastore where its employees spend their days. Whatever disagreement is consuming the break room, something worse is probably happening in the next aisle.

Mordecai and Rigby have what might be the most dangerous minimum-wage job in television history. However, their employer would probably argue that they cause most of their problems. Ask them to set up chairs, clean a fountain, or prepare a few hot dogs, and there's a reasonable chance the afternoon will end in an interdimensional catastrophe, an ancient supernatural creature, or someone fighting for their life. Even better, they'll probably spend the first half of the day doing nothing before making things exponentially worse. That particular brand of stupidity became the foundation of REGULAR SHOW, J.G. Quintel's delightfully ridiculous Cartoon Network series that somehow sustained its increasingly outrageous premise across eight seasons.

A boy wearing a white bear-eared hat and a talking yellow dog shouldn't have been responsible for one of television's most imaginative coming-of-age stories. Yet over 278 episodes, ADVENTURE TIME did exactly that, taking what initially seemed like a collection of ridiculous cartoon adventures and developing it into something far more ambitious. Creator Pendleton Ward introduced audiences to a place where candy people have their own kingdom, vampires play bass guitar, princesses come in practically every conceivable variety, and danger could mean anything from an ancient supernatural creature to an argument between friends. Nearly everything about the Land of Ooo is ridiculous, but spending eight years there reveals just how thoughtfully constructed this strange little universe became.

An immortal man still has to decide what to do with his afternoon. FOREVER gives Dr. Henry Morgan a job, a household, colleagues, and reasons to get involved in other people’s lives, which is a much better use of its premise than simply cataloging how he can survive dying. The supernatural mystery supplies an immediate hook. The ordinary attachments make these twenty-two episodes worth caring about, and they’re the reason its single-season run feels so unfairly brief.

Billy Crudup makes a business meeting look like the most exciting thing Cory Ellison has ever attended. His smile widens as the conversation worsens, and every reassurance sounds like he’s enjoying a private joke at someone else’s expense. Three seasons into THE MORNING SHOW, watching Cory talk his way through a disaster remains one of the show’s most reliable pleasures. It also says plenty about this season that a network executive negotiating for his company’s survival can seem more comfortable than the journalists explaining why they deserve the public’s trust.

Founders Cove feels like a place you’d visit to buy a book, wander the waterfront, and consider staying another night. Its murder rate complicates that sales pitch, although YOU’RE KILLING ME makes the town inviting enough that people keep turning up anyway. The first season settles into that familiar pleasure of a cozy mystery: an attractive place, questionable neighbors, and investigators whose company matters as much as the answer. Brooke Shields and Amalia Williamson give this particular destination a good reason to make the trip.

Dating apps are supposed to make meeting someone easier, but anyone who's used one knows the experience isn't always pleasant. Between awkward conversations, questionable profiles, and the occasional disastrous date, there's already enough to worry about without imagining that the person on the other side of the screen might have something sinister in mind. For 24-year-old Sydney Loofe, an ordinary decision to meet someone through Tinder in November 2017 became the beginning of a horrifying criminal case that would eventually attract national attention. Director Brian Biegel revisits her story in SWIPE RIGHT ON THE DEVIL, a three-part Hulu documentary that examines a disappearance involving manipulation, unsettling beliefs, and people whose behavior becomes almost impossible to comprehend.

Spending six years pretending to be someone else has to mess with your head. You build relationships, develop routines, and build an entire existence around a fictional identity, knowing you'll eventually have to abandon it all with little explanation. Returning to your real life shouldn't be the hard part. CIA operative Brandon Colby, better known by his codename Martian (Michael Fassbender), discovers that leaving his undercover assignment behind is much easier said than done. THE AGENCY, an American adaptation of the acclaimed French series THE BUREAU, takes this uncomfortable situation and builds an intelligent, frequently gripping espionage drama around people who have become so accustomed to lying that being truthful no longer comes naturally.

Few families in TV history have had as much space in American pop culture as the Bradys. Its nine-square opening credits, impossibly catchy theme song, and six kids have remained fixtures of American pop culture long after the original series ended. That's quite an accomplishment for a sitcom that never ranked among television's thirty most-watched programs during its original run. Created by Sherwood Schwartz, THE BRADY BUNCH aired on ABC from 1969 to 1974 before finding a different level of popularity through syndication. Paramount's latest complete-series DVD collection brings together all 117 episodes across five seasons, offering nearly fifty hours of a family whose life problems rarely lasted longer than twenty-five minutes.

The worst part of suspecting someone you love isn't who they claim to be might be watching everyone else carry on as though nothing's wrong. That's the situation Sonny (Sam Nivola) faces in PHONY, as his growing suspicion that his mother has been replaced leaves him questioning what he knows about her and whether he can trust his own judgment. The more he searches for answers, the harder it becomes to tell whether he's uncovering something genuinely terrifying or creating a nightmare for himself.

Yosemite National Park draws millions of visitors yearly to admire its waterfalls, towering cliffs, and spectacular landscapes. Kyle Turner spends his time dealing with the things those visitors would rather never think about. He knows how quickly someone can get into trouble in the wilderness, how hard it can be to find a missing person, and how little the surroundings matter when something goes wrong. UNTAMED takes a place most people associate with vacations and turns it into the setting for a murder investigation where the landscape presents almost as many obstacles as the people involved.

Jason Segel is why I gave SHRINKING a chance. I'd missed watching him in HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, and the idea of him playing a therapist who could barely manage his own problems sounded like a natural fit. Somewhere along the way, though, my reasons for watching changed. I became invested in the people surrounding Jimmy Laird, each dealing with their own complicated lives, questionable decisions, and occasional breakthroughs. I still enjoy Jimmy, but after spending this much time with everyone else, I can't imagine the series without them.

Five seasons is usually where a sitcom starts revealing exactly how much gas is left in the tank. Familiar character combinations get paired up again, old conflicts return in slightly different clothes, and the same locations start to feel more like sets than places where these people actually live and work. ABBOTT ELEMENTARY shows a few signs of reaching that stage during its fifth season, but what's impressive is how quickly Quinta Brunson and her writers seem to recognize the danger and start messing with their own formula. They literally move the school into a mall.

I thought a lot about how I wanted to approach this review. FRIDAY THE 13TH is my favorite horror franchise; I love the lore, the cheesiness, and the brutality. There was point while watching CRYSTAL LAKE, I realized my problem wasn’t that the series wasn’t giving me enough Pamela Voorhees. It was most definitely giving me the version I wanted to see, including her grief, deterioration, and gradual evolution toward the woman we know she becomes. The problem is that every time that part of the story starts becoming really interesting, the series seems determined to build something else around it.

I miss Taylor Sheridan making movies. That thought followed me through almost all of THE MADISON, which probably isn't fair to a television series that largely succeeds at what it sets out to do. Sheridan has become one of television's most prolific creators, but before THE MADISON, I somehow hadn't watched any of his many series. My connection to him comes from the movies, particularly the three films he has called his thematic American Frontier trilogy: SICARIO, HELL OR HIGH WATER, and WIND RIVER. Taken together, they're phenomenal.

The murder in DTF ST. LOUIS honestly feels like a trick to get us through the door. Steven Conrad gives us a dead body, two detectives, shifting timelines, unreliable accounts of what happened, and plenty of questions about how everything went wrong, but solving the case gradually becomes less important than understanding why these people were vulnerable to blowing up their lives in the first place.

I owe CARRIE (Mike Flanagan, Prime Video, and basically everyone associated with this) an apology. From the moment this series was announced, I was 110% convinced that it captured exactly what frustrates me so much about Hollywood's obsession with remaking things that don't need remaking, and I don't think I've ever been happier to discover how completely wrong I was.