• Network: NBC
  • Series Premiere Date: Sep 19, 2011
  • Season #: 1
The Playboy Club Image
Metascore

Mixed or average reviews - based on 28 Critics What's this?

User Score

Mixed or average reviews- based on 33 Ratings

  • Summary: The drama takes a look at the bunnies who worked the infamous Playboy Club in Chicago, where entertainers, politicians, and the mob came to have a drink in the early 1960s.
  • Genre(s): Drama
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 28
  2. Negative: 8 out of 28
  1. Reviewed by: Dorothy Rabinowitz
    Sep 16, 2011
    80
    A sharply drawn and riveting one from the evidence on hand, and bolstered by a skilled cast. This club should lure plenty of customers, television-viewing variety. They'll have good reason.
  2. Reviewed by: Glenn Garvin
    Sep 19, 2011
    60
    As a kind of CSI: Sleaze City, the show is quite watchable.
  3. Reviewed by: Mark A. Perigard
    Sep 19, 2011
    58
    NBC, together with Academy Award-winning producer Brian Grazer ("A Beautiful Mind"), tries to duplicate the success of AMC's "Mad Men" but cribs the wrong details with a woefully untalented cast, mixed feminist messages and a melodrama that is at times laugh-out-loud funny.
  4. Reviewed by: Nancy Franklin
    Sep 26, 2011
    30
    I said that The Playboy Club might be promising. Guess what? I lied.

See all 28 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 7
  2. Negative: 2 out of 7
  1. 9
    I really liked this show, certainly was better than most of the other new shows out there. I can't believe they pulled it after 3 weeks. Thought it was well made and had some good drama going on, not to mention some good eye candy. Hopefully the rest of the series will be out on DVD Expand
  2. I read some negative reviews on this one, so I almost didn't check it out. I'm glad I did though, there was a lot to like here. Eddie Cibrian proved that he's way too hot for Leanne Rimes, and some of the hot chicks could act. Drawbacks here include allowing Hugh Hefner to narrate even with his loose dentures (gag) and not casting a hot young actor as Heff. In the pilot he's only shown from behind at the end. Fix that and I'll watch again. Expand
  3. Not as bad as I pictured it. Of course I've always viewed the entire Playboy empire as a bit of a farce. Hefner (or the Heff-like narrator) tries to sell himself as a pioneer of civil and women's rights while he has women prancing around with bunny ears and cotton tails sticking out of their bums. I wonder how many times the phrase "like Madmen" was tossed around during the writers meetings? Expand
  4. I tried to like this show - I was hoping for something engaging and entertaining but after persisting with it I have given it the flick. The reason? The constant glorification and sanctification of Hef. The man made lots of money off **** and ass... fine, I can accept that - but please, stop the revisionist butt-kissing which paints the man as some sort of social champion, changing the world, curing it's ills, empowering women and supporting special interest groups. The whole thing comes off reeking of a self-serving propaganda piece as opposed to the entertaining show it could have been. Expand

See all 7 User Reviews