Underrated/Overrated

UNDERRATED

Romany Malco: Maybe better known by one of the names on his Twitter bio (“The Black Guy From ’40 Yr. Old Virgin’”), Malco should finally make a name for himself as a top-tier comic talent in “Think Like a Man,” a new film with stand-up star Kevin Hart. Malco was a scene stealer in Showtime’s “Weeds” and the aforementioned Apatow movie, but his Web-friendly turn as life coach Tijuana Jackson on “Funny or Die” helped take him to the next level.

Playoff hockey: Regardless of whether the L.A. Kings continue their torrid pace or revert to the underdog No. 8 seed they are, few experiences in sports are as riveting as the NHL playoffs. You can have your strike-shortened NBA and the sleepy early stages of spring baseball, but for pure cathartic release and mind-scrambling skill, nothing beats hockey — no “Slap Shot”-styled violence required. Kudos to NBC for putting spring back on ice.

OVERRATED

Lena Dunham’s ‘Girls’: She’s the twentysomething auteur of the moment (every decade needs one), and her new HBO series could rack up tidy profits if the network had a dollar for every time the words “revolutionary” or “Sex and the City” were invoked in its wake. But this alleged comedy seems a familiar depiction of privileged, post-collegiate angst in New York City that’s served with such awkward self-obsession that it’s too unpleasant to be funny.

Boy bands, again: Just when you thought a stake had been driven through the “five boys and a melody” pop formula that begot New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys, the phenomenon is back with the U.K.’s chart-topping One Direction. Brace yourselves, everyone — this is how the siege begins before these groups start reproducing on our shores. Honestly, England, we’d apologize for that whole revolution thing if you’d just quit exporting this stuff.

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