Griselda ★★★
Netflix
Early on in this cocaine and conquest period drama, a Miami drug kingpin explains his philosophy to recent arrival Griselda Blanco (Sofia Vergara). “You need to understand that my business runs on volume,” he explains, and that’s also Netflix’s model. As the dominant streaming platform, it’s awash in content. Much of the drama is solid if familiar, perhaps buoyed with a big name to set off a quick binge. That’s Griselda, the series, which does a concise rise and fall for Griselda, the woman.

Opening with a Pablo Escobar quote and a wounded Blanco and her three sons fleeing a privileged life in Colombia for a single room in Miami, the limited series is set at the beginning of both the 1980s and America’s cocaine boom. Co-creators Doug Miro and Eric Newman were responsible for a previous Netflix historic drug trade drama, Narcos, and much of the set-up is familiar: rags to riches ambition, broad strokes, and violent punctuation.

The twist is that Griselda is a woman in a man’s world. She’s either underestimated or ripped off, even as the nightclub scenes and Donna Summer needle drops give off Scarface vibes. At first she’s an underdog, and her crimes worry her despite a prior history in the narcotics trade. This is in fact generous to the real Griselda Blanco, who was responsible for a wave of carnage, as documented in everything from hip-hop songs to the 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys. This iteration gives her the anti-hero treatment.

In the title role, and a long way from her sitcom success in Modern Family, Vergara brings a flinty, deductive edge to her Griselda. She’s smarter than the macho guys she has to navigate, and eventually bloodier. Working around facial prosthetics, Vergara leaves some doubt to the point where Griselda stops trying to provide for her family and bloodily tries to control the entire Miami cocaine trade. She’s certainly a female pioneer, but her breakthrough success is in ramping up drug shipments and drive-by hits.

What ensues is a balancing act. To balance out the representation, for example, the police focused on bringing Griselda down are also Latino. There’s some moral anguish, but once Griselda breaks the first rule of dealing – don’t get high on your own supply – there’s excess to wallow in. Director Andres Baiz, a Colombian filmmaker, turns a latter episode into a telenovela taken to macabre extremes. Griselda is ultimately just one of the cartel guys, and Griselda is ultimately just one of Netflix’s many shows.

Masters of the Air ★★ ½
Apple TV+
This World War II limited series from producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks follows the formula of their previous collaborations, 2001’s Band of Brothers and 2010’s The Pacific. There’s a detailed recounting of Americans in combat, lavish production values, and an accomplished young cast. But with the focus on the bloody bombing campaign the US Air Force mounted over Germany, it strains to be a cohesive story. There are planes everywhere, but the show is earthbound.

Amid the countless digital air combat scenes, Austin Butler (Elvis) and Callum Turner (The Boys in the Boat) play best pals and dedicated pilots, Gale “Buck” Cleven and John “Bucky” Egan. But with oxygen masks on it’s difficult to follow individual characters or even entire crews in the air, while on the ground there’s taciturn camaraderie and the occasional outburst of cliché, whether it’s pompous British flyers in a pub or Joanna Kulig as a sultry Polish expatriate.