“You get one story. Take it away, Nick.”

There’s a lot going on under the surface in “Tuesday Meeting.” Last week, New Girl’s seventh and final season opened with a heartening sense of achievement and expansion for this ever-widening group of friends: of a broader world they’re exploring, of careers thriving, and of a…

“Don’t make it about the mustache!”

As New Girl hurtled toward the end of its sixth-season—and, at the time, the possible series conclusion—its last seconds showed Jessica Day and Nick Miller yelling, “Stay right there!” as they frantically raced toward each other. They didn’t stay put, though, and that’s how they…

Just four episodes in, Here And Now has succumbed to a too-familiar pattern: another speech, another family gathering, another vision. “Hide And Seek” stands out only by limiting itself to one formal speech, one assembled audience, one room full of folding chairs, where previous episodes have given speeches to two or…

“Maybe it’s just a continuing journey of successes and failures.”

“It looks like you’ve got something that could maybe become a cloud.”

“That means something, right?”

The A.V. Club’s picks for the top TV of 2017 carry with them a hint of escapism: otherworldly settings, larger-than-life characters, lavish costumes, talking horses, kitchens straight out of an interior designer’s wildest fantasies. Whatever could we be trying to escape from? And could we reasonably expect our glowing…

In The A.V. Club’s attempt to carve the mountain of TV released in 2017 into a monument commemorating the year’s best programming, we took a slightly different tack than in years past: Ballots were limited to 10 shows apiece, separating the absolute favorites from the fondly remembered and the honorable mentions. Once…

It’s Saturday night—Sunday morning, almost. I’ve just left my neighborhood bar after a night out with friends (rarer than it used to be, but just as fun). I convince my husband to walk the long way home, past the 24-hour gas station. There I grab a plain cheese pizza from the picked-over freezer section.

“What kind of freaky creep built this mixed-up jumble of jambalaya?”

“Here’s to being a team and to not having secrets!”

“You just tested positive for rudeness!”

Held with family and a few friends in their sunny backyard, binding themselves together with their Icelandic ribbon to the accompaniment of a three-man band of Icelandic drummers and Larissa’s harp, Maria and Scott’s wedding is simple, tranquil, and joyful. It’s sweet, and…

Maria’s troubles have been simmering for decades.

“Get your tongue ready, let’s go!”

Larissa and Dagmar have felt a little short-changed this season, because that’s how Maria’s treated them since Scott moved in. But by casting Lennon Parham and Bridget Everett as Maria’s closest friends, Lady Dynamite guaranteed that even their smallest gestures are rendered into character-specific glimmers of…

After a slightly bumpy premiere, Lady Dynamite bounces back with a captivating episode, seamlessly constructed and performed, and building on ideas introduced in “Wet Raccoon” without treading tediously over old ground. One of those ideas is Maria’s decision to devote more energy to her home life and new partner, with…

Lady Dynamite’s second-season premiere wants to have its cake and eat it, too. That’s not a complaint; that’s a theme woven through “Wet Raccoon” right from the jump—the actual jump, when Maria jumps in and out of the shower in the opening scene. (I’ll use “Maria” to speak of the fictionalized character and “Bamford”…

In the first-season finale of Stranger Things, promises were made to be broken—or at least long delayed. As season two closes, those promises are finally kept. Some of those promises were huge and hard to comprehend, much less keep: a gate into another dimension that had to be closed, a beast that had to be defeated,…

After the genre-hopping delights of “Chapter Six: The Spy” and the dead-end detour of “Chapter Seven: The Lost Sister,” “Chapter Eight: The Mind Flayer” plunges Stranger Things right back into pure horror. This isn’t slow-build atmospheric horror, though the settings are rich in dreadful atmosphere. This is viciously…

Stranger Things’ “Chapter Seven: The Lost Sister” could have worked. It should have worked.