not as critical as I thought

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You know that show Penn and Teller Tell a Lie? Of the episodes that have been on, I've only been able to determine that one of the stories was false. The rest just slipped by. I'm especially distraught over the fact that they actually plant falsehoods in the narrative - last night, they said that helium was the most abundant element in the observable universe. I knew that was false but I didn't pick up on it.

I don't know what to do to flex my mental muscles to make myself more critical, more skeptical.

Is it really worth it? Becoming even more critical and skeptical than you currently are probably would have diminishing returns for you. Based on your post history- including this post where you concentrate on spotting their lie- you are well beyond any danger of being naive and gullible. You already analyze information very carefully. Some bs slips through, but not a critical amount that puts you in danger of gullible decision making. Trying to make your information filter even more stringent puts you in danger of the other extreme- analysis paralysis.

I try to filter information to make good decisions. There are times when bs inevitably slips past my radar. But I don't sweat it unless I need to make a decision based on certain information. If it's information I don't have to act on, then it's ok if it slipped past my filter. If I analyzed and researched literally everything with great objectivity I would never get anything done.

Yay for Penn & Teller.

You shouldn't be able to guess which story is false without prior knowledge. That's the whole point of it. If you didn't know in advance that Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, you shouldn't expect your gut to tell you that it is the wrong story. The problem is actually with using guts at all instead of your rational side.

If you knew the helium thing, then what you need to do is not be "more critical" or "more skeptical" but to pay more attention at it, and you should always pay attention when reading articles and documentaries, etc, because it is very easy to miss a key component when you are not focusing.

For example, it is like watching Ancient Aliens. If you don't focus on them, their arguments may actually make sense. You need to be very attentive because in every 5 minute segment there are at least 4 different points at which they inject something that is utterly wrong and you have to detect it at that very minute.

So what Penn and teller are doing is exactly that, if you blink you will miss the magic trick.