by degrees

“Will & Harper’s” ability to walk a fine line between being edifying and didactic, entertaining and superficial, is woven into its very structure, with its stars’ connection deepening by degrees until they reach the Mojave Desert town of Trona, where Steele, in a shattering moment, reveals the depths of her past self-hatred.

Even after the Nazis invade Poland, halfway through the opening episode, things advance by degrees, so that the next worst thing can’t quite be imagined, and once imagined really believed.

Arti Gollapudi plays all three of Deepali’s older sisters, for example, differing mainly by degrees of uptightness.

The #MeToo movement offers proof that a culture can change — slowly and by degrees.

It hit me so forcefully: This is exactly how it happened — it happened by degrees,” she said.