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Tara Ariano

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Writer, editor, and snack enthusiast Tara Ariano is the co-founder of TelevisionWithoutPity.com and Fametracker.com (RIP). She has contributed to New York, the New York Times magazine, Vanity Fair, Vulture, Decider, Salon, Collider, and Slate, among others. She also co-hosts the podcasts Extra Hot Great (on TV); Again With This (a compulsively detailed episode-by-episode breakdown of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place); and The Sweet Smell Of Succession (about the HBO drama). She lives in Austin.

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
The Four Seasons: Season 1 (2025) 78% D+ EDIT “All I could see watching this take on The Four Seasons was evidence of joke opportunities producers let go by.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review Conan O'Brien Must Go: Season 2 (2025) 83% B- EDIT “The title Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend could easily have been repurposed for the travel show, which finds him journeying the world making friends everywhere he goes.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review Overcompensating: Season 1 (2025) 94% B EDIT “This is a show made by people who understand that the best college comedies are about making huge, hilarious, but ultimately inconsequential mistakes.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review Big Mouth: Season 8 (2025) 100% B EDIT “The show’s true magic is how its wildest flights of animated fancy spin out from human-scale concerns.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review And Just Like That...: Season 3 (2025) 45% C- EDIT “The first half of the season makes us follow Carrie through suffering and sacrifice; and just like that, I’m desperate for the back half to give us all a break.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review Stick: Season 1 (2025) 81% C- EDIT “Both Marc Maron and Owen Wilson are wearing their characters as loosely as an actor can, to the point where they might as well have had their scripts in their hands in all their scenes. Neither of them was apparently even willing to cut their hair.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review Tires: Season 2 (2025) 78% B- EDIT “At its best, Tires is like a contemporary Clerks, intimately familiar with the kind of antisocial crap guys can get up to at a job that doesn’t occupy all their mental energy.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review Too Much: Season 1 (2025) 80% B+ EDIT “Given the Dunham pedigree, it’s sure to be as polarizing as everything else she’s done in her career and private life. But for those who can meet Too Much with an open mind, there’s a lot here to like.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review King of the Hill: Season 14 (2025) 98% B- EDIT “Among the past few years’ many comedy reboots and revivals, King of the Hill is, for me, second only to 2023’s third season of Party Down in terms of how carefully it’s thought through how its characters have changed, or not.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review Platonic: Season 2 (2025) 100% A- EDIT “Some of the Season Two beats feel like echoes of plots we saw in Season One, but maybe that’s just true to life: It’s not like self-destruction takes an entirely different form every time.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review Wednesday: Season 2 (2025) 87% B- EDIT “Though it’s clear why younger viewers would be eager to spend time in this world, this adult sometimes feels like the aesthetics are a distraction from a lack of character development.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review Peacemaker: Season 2 (2025) 94% B EDIT “By carrying its lore lightly, instead of seeming burdened by it, Peacemaker can engage the viewer with its universally relatable stakes.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review Upload: Season 4 (2025) 80% C- EDIT “It’s basically a mash-up of half a dozen existing episodes of Black Mirror, except much longer and a lot less clever.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review The Paper: Season 1 (2025) 85% D EDIT “The Paper has interesting characters and amusing situations — they’re just all in the service of a premise it doesn’t take seriously enough.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review Only Murders in the Building: Season 5 (2025) 89% C EDIT “One wonders if the reality encroaching on the aging characters reflects the reality behind the scenes at the show’s production, and the necessity for an exit strategy. ” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review Futurama: Season 13 (2025) 100% B- EDIT “The show may not still have the power to surprise us the way it did in its early days, but if it continues on the flight path Season 13 is charting, that could be just fine.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review The Lowdown: Season 1 (2025) 98% A EDIT “What makes Lee the perfect protagonist for a show like this is that he’s probably going to make the wrong decision for the right reason.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review On Brand With Jimmy Fallon: Season 1 (2025) D EDIT “What On Brand dares to wonder is, what if product placement was the whole show? ” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review Chad Powers: Season 1 (2025) 59% B- EDIT “That the show can convincingly glide from Russ and Danny doing slapstick in one episode to having a genuinely affecting fight a couple of episodes later speaks to the show’s ambitions — considering how preposterous the central premise actually is.” – Cracked Mar 7, 2026 Full Review Adults: Season 1 (2025) 74% A- EDIT “As a title, Adults strikes the perfect note for the show it belongs to: It feels a little ironic, a little sheepish and only defensive until the slightest pushback makes it cave.” – Cracked May 28, 2025 Full Review Poker Face: Season 2 (2025) 96% B EDIT “While watching Charlie use her lie-detecting gift to solve mysteries is extremely satisfying, the second season of Poker Face also gives us a peek at what Charlie could become, beyond her superpower.” – Cracked May 8, 2025 Full Review Running Point: Season 1 (2025) 79% A- EDIT “Amazingly, Running Point sidesteps the worst girlboss clichés, and is much more than Legally Blonde on a basketball court.” – Cracked Apr 18, 2025 Full Review The Righteous Gemstones: Season 4 (2025) 100% A- EDIT “Even amid the show’s famously raunchy humor, the real shock of The Righteous Gemstones — especially in its fourth and final season, premiering on HBO March 9th — is how sincere it can be.” – Cracked Apr 18, 2025 Full Review The Studio: Season 1 (2025) 92% B+ EDIT “If you’ve been waiting for the heir to Veep that The Franchise, from the same creator (Armando Iannucci), somehow wasn’t: it’s here.” – Cracked Apr 18, 2025 Full Review The Residence: Season 1 (2025) 84% D EDIT “I assume producers only decided it was a comedy after they had made it; otherwise, I can’t explain why there aren’t any jokes.” – Cracked Apr 18, 2025 Full Review
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