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Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition.

The critics don’t always get it right. Some viewers are adamant that certain polarizing or panned shows deserve their flowers, while others think particular acclaimed series can be overindulged with praise. For those who enjoy bickering with a Rotten Tomatoes score, read on for our editors’ answers to the question: What is a TV show that the critics were wrong about?

Season 2 of Euphoria (streaming on Max)

Coming off the heels of Euphoria’s visually stunning and acclaimed first season, the ingredients were all there for a successful Season 2: the talent, the stylish costuming, Labrinth’s distinctive synth-loaded score, the sheer force of the show’s cultural influence. I cared about the characters and their arcs—a feeling only amplified by the gut-wrenching performances of Rue (played by Zendaya) and Jules (played by Hunter Schafer) in the two stand-alone episodes that aired after the first season’s finale. But as the episodes in Season 2 stacked up, I found myself wondering: Is this it?

My grievances largely stem from how the characters were treated. Some of them got plenty of spotlight (Cassie, I’d argue, got more than necessary), and some beloved characters, including Kat, were sidelined and thrown for a loop with plotlines that didn’t gel with their character development in the previous season. Fez and Lexi’s relationship was intriguing but ended up undercooked. Elliot’s easy interference between Rue and Jules bewildered me. I’ve heard the defenses from die-hard Euphoria fans—they’re teenagers; they’re supposed to be irrational and impulsive and emotional—but in the end, messy characters don’t justify sloppy storytelling.

— Stephanie Bai, associate newsletters editor

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Season 3 of The Sex Lives of College Girls (streaming on Max)

The Sex Lives of College Girls, Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble’s HBO comedy about four roommates, is best described as a college show meant to appeal to Millennials. And sure, it’s far from realistic. Are anyone’s dorm rooms really that big? Has a college student ever worn as many tweed blazers as Leighton? And why does every single male student have washboard abs?

But once you give up on trying to find relatable depictions of college days, past or present, you can enjoy the genuinely sweet and funny portrayal of female friendship. Many viewers have rightly complained that Reneé Rapp’s absence from most of the recent third season left a noticeable hole, and the critical reception was lukewarm, too. But by the season finale, the chemistry between the new “fourth roommate,” Kacey (played by Gracie Lawrence), and the rest of the girls was perfect. I still think about the scene where they sit on the floor and tell the awkward tales of losing their virginity. It’s a reminder of the profound power of good jokes and good advice, especially when delivered by a friend.

— Isabel Fattal, senior newsletters editor

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Caso Cerrado (streaming on Peacock)

Caso Cerrado has had a chokehold on four generations of my family, though by any critical standards, it’s not exactly a great show. The Spanish-language courtroom reality-TV series, based in Miami, aired for 18 years on Telemundo and was broadcast across Latin America. My devout Dominican grandmother allowed only nature documentaries and Caso Cerrado to be played on her TV; my great-grandmother perpetually had it on during her final years, like ambient noise.

Though wildly popular, Caso Cerrado often received unfavorable reviews—one Spanish newspaper called it the “most ridiculous … show on television”—and accusations that its storylines were fabricated abounded. But at its peak, more than 1 million viewers tuned in daily to watch the lawyer Ana María Polo settle family and legal disputes, wielding a mix of Judge Judy’s bluntness and Oprah’s empathetic listening. Scored by melodramatic telenovela music, the show offered vignettes of human conflict—families fighting, crying, reconciling—that were at once deliciously dramatic and thought-provoking. This mix proved hyper-bingeable for my family and many others, especially because the show provided a tidy ending for its heavy topics in a way that real life often can’t. When each episode wrapped up, Polo would smack her gavel and pronounce “Caso cerrado!” Case closed.

— Valerie Trapp, assistant editor

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Battlestar Galactica (streaming on Prime Video)

The 2004 Battlestar Galactica reboot has been heralded for years as a triumph of storytelling: In 2020, for example, The Guardian wrote that “everyone is aware that BSG is supposed to be some sort of 21st-century TV classic.” I expected to love it—I’m the target audience for edgy science fiction with a strong serving of political allegory, where characters have to make morally gray choices in order to serve bigger causes the best way they believe they can. But the intervening years have not been kind to this series, or to its women, whom the writing too frequently flattens into badasses who have credulity-straining romances with the men they work with. Paired with the heavy-handedness of its messaging, and the way the plot goes off the rails in later seasons … All I can say is thank goodness we’ll always have everything this show promised in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

— Emma Sarappo, senior associate editor

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Seasons 3 and 4 of The Killing (streaming on Hulu)

When the temperature hovers stubbornly at freezing, and rain is ceaseless, what sustains me is a twisty murder mystery propelled by a pair of moody detectives with some damn good chemistry. Well-known recent prestige shows fit the bill (True Detective, Mare of Easttown), but I’ll point you instead to the overlooked third and fourth seasons of The Killing, which reboot the central murder plot so you can easily start midway through the series.

Contrary to many critics, I prefer the latter seasons, in which the haunted ex-detective Sarah Linden (played by Mireille Enos), trying to settle into a quiet life as a transit cop just outside of cold, rainy Seattle, is drawn back into a homicide investigation when her former partner gets involved with a new case that shares gory similarities with a previous case of hers. But wait—a man had already been convicted and sentenced to death row for that past crime. Now you have 16 episodes filled with doubt and personal obsessions to savor.

— Shan Wang, programming director

Here are four Sunday reads from The Atlantic:

How progressives froze the American dream Growing up Murdoch David Frum: Why the COVID deniers won The Tesla revolt

The Week Ahead

Season 3 of The White Lotus, a comedy-drama series set at the White Lotus resort in Thailand (premieres tonight on Max) The Monkey, a horror movie based on Stephen King’s short story about a cursed monkey toy (in theaters Friday) Lorne, a book by Susan Morrison about the Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels (out Tuesday)

Essay

Illustration by Katie Martin

I’ve Never Seen Parents This Freaked Out About Vaccines

By Emily Oster

Today, the world of vaccine questions has totally changed—in my view, for the much worse. I’m not just referring to the spectacle of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s likely ascension to the top of the government’s health-care bureaucracy or of Republican senators questioning vaccine safety publicly. Something is also happening among parents. I’ve continued to write about parenting, and to talk with parents about vaccines. And those conversations over the past few years—and especially the past year—have completely changed.

Read the full article.

More in Culture

Can anything satisfy the guests of The White Lotus? The house where 28,000 records burned The game that shows we’re thinking about history all wrong “Dear James”: Should I leave my American partner? The paradox of music discovery, the Spotify way The unfunny man who believes in humor What Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show said

Catch Up on The Atlantic

Anne Applebaum: There’s a term for what Trump and Musk are doing. RFK Jr. won. Now what? Trump says the corrupt part out loud.

Photo Album

As the International Space Station passed over the United Kingdom, this photo captured the city lights below. (Don Pettit / NASA)

Don Pettit, a NASA astronaut, engineer, and photographer, recently returned to the International Space Station for his fourth mission. Take a look at his photos of city lights, auroras, airglow, and the stars of our surrounding galaxy.

Explore all of our newsletters.

When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

Before Vine’s die-hard fans said goodbye, they wanted to reminisce. The short-form-video app, which shut down in 2017, created lots of viral moments (“And they were roommates …”) and propelled a number of internet creators into the mainstream. It was unlike anything else on the internet at the time: You can still sometimes see the refrain “RIP Vine” thrown around on social media. But for the most part, everybody has moved on. Two of Vine’s biggest stars, Logan Paul and Shawn Mendes, are still plenty famous.

I immediately thought of Vine this morning, when the Supreme Court upheld a law that requires TikTok to be sold by its Chinese parent company or face a ban in the United States. After I saw the news I then checked TikTok. The app was a hotbed of nostalgia, with many users reposting their earliest videos from several years ago. The ruling is the latest twist in the ongoing saga over the app’s fate: For more than four years, TikTok has been plagued by questions about its ties to the Chinese government. Unless there’s a last-minute intervention—still possible!—the app could conceivably shut off on Sunday. (After the Supreme Court’s decision, Joe Biden’s administration announced that it would leave enforcement of the ban to Donald Trump.)

[Read: The internet is TikTok now]

It’s a lot of fanfare and suspense over an app that, well, just isn’t all that important. There’s no denying TikTok has had a significant impact on American culture. Its kitschy trends, given names like “coastal grandmother,” influence the stores Americans shop at and the products they buy. Why were Stanley cups suddenly everywhere last year? Blame TikTok. Artists are encouraged to create music that might spark a dance challenge on the app. This is part of what TikTok does well: Its algorithm serves users ultra-personalized content, increasing engagement.

But though Americans might be listening to music or shopping for clothing that was made with TikTok in mind, a majority of them are not scrolling the app itself. According to a Pew survey released last year, only a third of U.S. adults said they had ever used TikTok. YouTube touches far more Americans, with 83 percent of adults reporting that they use the platform. Although TikTok is often referred to as the Gen Z app, a larger share of 18-to-29-year-olds are on Snapchat and Instagram.

To some degree, TikTok users seem at peace with knowing they have other options. Few people have flocked to Capitol Hill to protest the ban. For the most part, celebrities are not speaking out about just how dire the stakes of a TikTok blackout could be. Online, people are expressing their dismay with sardonic humor: tearfully saying goodbye to the hypothetical “Chinese spy” that’s supposedly been observing their TikTok behavior all these years. Millions have downloaded another Chinese app, Xiaohongshu, whose name translates to “little red book” in English.

[Read: It’s just an app]

TikTok would be the first major social-media platform to face an outright ban in the U.S., but its demise would not be so unfamiliar. Even apart from Vine, Millennials and Gen X users spent their youth on platforms that also one day just disappeared, or became otherwise unrecognizable. Tumblr went through a number of changes that gutted the once-thriving blogging platform. Users eventually find new homes elsewhere: Facebook overtook MySpace, only to cede its cultural cache to Instagram, and TikTok itself absorbed Musical.ly. It’s all part of the larger cycle of migration that has always defined social media. The same will likely be true with TikTok. So many social platforms have already cribbed from the app and feature similar algorithmic feeds that keep you scrolling. As Hana Kiros wrote yesterday, “The app might get banned in the United States, but we’ll still be living in TikTok’s world.”

This isn’t to say a TikTok ban wouldn’t be felt. Influencers with big TikTok followings will have to fight for attention on other platforms that may have different audiences and mechanisms for success. Small-business owners, in particular, may materially suffer. Restaurants are one viral video away from waking up to a line down the street, a designer just one hashtag off from selling out their new product. The app’s boon for businesses has been abetted by TikTok Shop, through which users can directly buy items featured in the videos on their feed. Those who went all in on TikTok will surely take a hit as they attempt to set up elsewhere online, but in all likelihood, they will recover.

When I opened TikTok this morning, many of the videos that users were reposting in farewell to the app featured trends I barely remembered from the early pandemic: Morning routines soundtracked by Powfu’s 2020 song “Death Bed,” and exaggerated lip-syncing to anime. Those videos are a testament to how quickly the internet moves on. In a few years, TikTok’s most defining moments, like Vine’s catchphrases and Tumblr’s main characters, will largely have been forgotten.