For 2,347 reviews, this publication has graded:
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41% higher than the average critic
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4% same as the average critic
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55% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4.9 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average TV Show review score: 62
Highest review score: | The Larry Sanders Show: Season 5 | |
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Lowest review score: | Notes from the Underbelly: Season 1 |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1,146 out of 1146
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Mixed: 0 out of 1146
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Negative: 0 out of 1146
1146
tv
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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Reviewed by
James Poniewozik
Like a lot of our mediated experiences over the last year, the night begged to be rated on a curve. It was more often fun in a “Good for them for giving it a shot” way. Even with living-room champagne, teleconferencing is still teleconferencing. ... The association acknowledged the racial issue in a perfunctory, we-have-work-to-do statement from the stage. It addressed the self-dealing charges not at all. ... This disjointed version of a usually carefree production felt like it was ailing.- The New York Times
- Posted Mar 1, 2021
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Reviewed by
James Poniewozik
Davies’s skill with structure is on full display here; the first installment is an immaculate introduction that builds and builds and ends with a wallop. His consistent cleverness, rather than coming off glib, charges the work with immediacy and verve. The storytelling is urgent, with few wasted moments. ... This is a stirring requiem for the dead, shot through with defiant life.- The New York Times
- Posted Feb 17, 2021
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Reviewed by
Margaret Lyons
“Clarice” is not aiming for the moon; it is aiming for — and achieves — CBS cop show. It’s a franchise in search of a purpose.- The New York Times
- Posted Feb 10, 2021
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We’re talking about a dense, complex history. No one film can hope to get all of it, and this one leaves a lot out. (Mention of the Black Power movement is all but absent here.) Still, there’s a lot, encapsulated in short, deft commentary by scholars and curators.- The New York Times
- Posted Feb 9, 2021
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale
Latifah puts a human face on the formulaic silliness and incapacitates faceless bad guys with aplomb, but there’s nothing in the pilot that requires her to do anything but coast on her charm.- The New York Times
- Posted Feb 4, 2021
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Reviewed by
James Poniewozik
At just four episodes, “Saints” is rare among docu-series today in not feeling stretched out. I could imagine a longer version that spent more time with the players and coaches at home. But there’s something to be said these days for a series that leaves you wanting more.- The New York Times
- Posted Jan 29, 2021
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale
Zackary Drucker (a producer on “Transparent” and “This Is Me”) and Nick Cammilleri, have packaged a complex and contradiction-laden tale adroitly and with remarkable legibility. The assurance with which they tell it matches the boldness with which Carmichael printed counterfeit money or created a company to make and market the Dale.- The New York Times
- Posted Jan 29, 2021
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Elisabeth Vincentelli
Only the new Season 4 character Élise (Anne Marivin), from the rival agency Starmédia, does not appear to have any redeeming traits besides her ecologically friendly mode of transportation. ... The excellent Season 4 opener milks Charlotte Gainsbourg’s real-life whisper-soft voice for laughs, and the episode easily ranks among the show’s funniest. The prickly relationship between fame and art runs through the entire series.- The New York Times
- Posted Jan 20, 2021
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Reviewed by
James Poniewozik
A hypnotic, meandering, surreality-TV walk into the knotty jungle of Lurie’s mind that explores living as an art form in itself. ... Lurie isn’t teaching painting. But he’s teaching something. Patience, purpose, attentiveness to your inner voice. It may seem rambling or self-indulgent at times. But the digressions are the point. The show, which at six half-hour episodes does not overstay its welcome, is like an apprenticeship with a crotchety bohemian Yoda.- The New York Times
- Posted Jan 20, 2021
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Reviewed by
James Poniewozik
The running device of the Nobody apparition makes Season 2, while still raucously funny, a more serious and spooky outing. So does the advance of real-life history, as the Civil War looms closer. ... There is little hard documentation from this period in the poet’s life. All of which frees this show to take poetic license — to tell its version of the truth, but to tell it weirdly, delightfully slant.- The New York Times
- Posted Jan 20, 2021
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale
Odd does not, by itself, equal good, and on the evidence of the three episodes made available for review, the eccentricities of “WandaVision” are mostly just weighing it down. It feels as if we’re still waiting for the real show to get started, and even with half-hour episodes (reminiscent of the hit Disney+ sci-fi serial, “The Mandalorian”) that’s a long time to wait.- The New York Times
- Posted Jan 14, 2021
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale
[Two episodes are] a very small sample, but it’s what we have, and it’s a jarringly flat 42 minutes of television. No blame goes to Danson, who strides through the role of Neil Bremer, the newly elected and largely unqualified mayor of Los Angeles, with his typical aplomb.- The New York Times
- Posted Jan 6, 2021
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Mike Hale
Despite the efforts of the talented director Aisling Walsh (“Maudie”), who gives the film a welcome restraint and clarity, “Elizabeth Is Missing” doesn’t hit the mark — the screenplay is too fussy and tricky, and the resolution to the twin mysteries, with its mixed notes of heroism and resignation, isn’t convincing. ... Maud may not come fully alive in the script, but there’s nothing missing in Jackson’s portrayal.- The New York Times
- Posted Jan 1, 2021
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Reviewed by
James Poniewozik
The various marriage plots and melodramas feel familiar (and, in the season’s back half, drawn-out), and the gestures at upstairs-downstairs class-consciousness are underdeveloped. But what works here is fizzy and fun enough that you may not care. Page is magnetic. ... Dynevor likewise balances Daphne’s romanticism and independent-mindedness, and the bow-chicka-wow-wow physical chemistry between the two leads is a character in itself. ... The old-newness of “Bridgerton” is a kind of statement in itself.- The New York Times
- Posted Dec 23, 2020
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Though the majority of the movie focuses on this singer’s powerhouse vocals during her 2019 Sweetener World Tour, there are glimpses into Grande’s offstage life that are a refreshing contrast to her glam persona. ... Light touches mixed in with bops like “Thank U, Next” and “7 Rings,” lend — if only slightly — an endearing, multidimensional human shape to the performer seen strutting the catwalk in thigh-high boots before thousands of adoring fans.- The New York Times
- Posted Dec 22, 2020
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale
Serviceable, workmanlike, maybe just good enough to keep you on the couch for nine hours.- The New York Times
- Posted Dec 16, 2020
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale
If you can look past some wooden dialogue and stiff acting, however, the new season might be the show’s best as an adventure-drama delivery system — the creators have only gotten better at pacing and packaging a taut conspiracy thriller over 10 weeks.- The New York Times
- Posted Dec 15, 2020
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James Poniewozik
The thriller, adapted by Peter Moffat from the Israeli series “Kvodo,” is good at ratcheting up the pressure but not at investing the viewer beyond the plot machinations. The characters feel like stock illustrations in a moral-philosophy seminar hypothetical.- The New York Times
- Posted Dec 3, 2020
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Jon Pareles
“Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions” is straightforward and cozy. ... Swift, Dessner and Antonoff perform as a trio on guitars, piano and a handful of other instruments, stripping away some of the fussy intricacies of the album’s studio versions in a way that heightens the songs’ sense of pristine contemplation.- The New York Times
- Posted Nov 30, 2020
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Margaret Lyons
It works! The new “Saved by the Bell,” debuting Wednesday on Peacock, is quick and funny, and it achieves a tricky blend of staying true enough to its source material while adapting to the standards of the day.- The New York Times
- Posted Nov 24, 2020
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Mike Hale
The prominence of race in the series’s analysis — critical theory, in a mild form, manifesting in a mainstream television project — can seem both entirely appropriate and slightly out of balance. While the documentary also gives a detailed portrait of Reagan as a fantasist who believed in and embodied a mythical American ideal, it could do a more comprehensive job of showing how race, nostalgia and American exceptionalism were inextricably woven together in his politics.- The New York Times
- Posted Nov 12, 2020
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale
Not making Claire an obvious monster might be a brave choice post-#MeToo, but Fidell hasn’t made her anything else that’s particularly interesting or revealing. ... [Robinson] has more of a struggle making sense of Eric, who’s positioned as sensitive and fragile but comes across as preternaturally adult, in a way that doesn’t quite add up.- The New York Times
- Posted Nov 9, 2020
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Margaret Lyons
All the pieces work fine — its gray and noisy world is fully realized and each character has a clearly defining schtick. But the show doesn’t appear to be about anything. Everyone is in favor of winning and opposed to losing, but there’s no meaningful motivation or specificity to any of their behaviors.- The New York Times
- Posted Nov 9, 2020
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Reviewed by
Mike Hale
Not every detail of the series’s social and political intrigue makes sense, especially with regard to the newspaper business. The human side of the equation mostly adds up, though, and Laurie nails the contradictions of Laurence, who tries kindness on for size but only to see whether it fits with his consuming ambition.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 30, 2020
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Reviewed by
James Poniewozik
A sweeping, radically curious five-part series. ... It’s a complicated mural of civic life that lets its subjects speak for themselves and resists reducing their concerns to bumper stickers. ... A final episode that might have seemed like a postscript instead brings the series’s threads together.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 28, 2020
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Mike Hale
This should all be sexily entertaining, and even fun. .... The fun lasts a little way into the second episode, with Jonathan’s whereabouts uncertain, Grace’s nerves fraying and the shape of the mystery still unclear. It dissipates pretty quickly after that. ... Scene after scene, we’re put through the wringer of watching manifestly intelligent people doing stupid and highly improbable things on the witness stand, on TV or in response to late-night booty calls. ... After a while, everything else about the show is just noise.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 22, 2020
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Mike Hale
“Gambit” never quite gets back to the charm of its Dickensian opening chapter, though, and it gets thinner as it goes along. Frank pulls off his combination of themes with a lot of old-Hollywood-style skill, but in the mix, neither the sports nor the personal-demons story line hits the levels of visceral excitement or emotional payoff that you might want. In the end, it was an admirable package that I wanted to love more than I did.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 21, 2020
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Mike Hale
In its determination not to be sensationalistic errs on the side of vagueness. (If the point is that Nilsen was just an empty shell, it’s not made in a way that I found very compelling or particularly chilling.) ... Enjoying “Des” — well, appreciating “Des” — has to do with its details, which include the seamless, highly capable ensemble work among Mays, Watkins, Tennant and Barry Ward (as Jay’s right-hand man) and the appropriately musty evocation of the period by the production designer Anna Higginson and the cinematographer Mark Wolf.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 14, 2020
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James Poniewozik
As on “Orange,” the comedy of “Social Distance” is sharp, provocative and cathartic, and more often than not, it’s rooted in pain. Though the episodes are short, some less than 20 minutes, watching them feels like entering the lives of full characters who have stories and conflicts that predate the pandemic and would be interesting even without it.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 13, 2020
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Reviewed by
James Poniewozik
It’s earnest, reasonably ambitious and lightly funny. But “Connecting …” lacks connection, its characters and dynamics too standard-issue to attach to. Too many of the quick-banter jokes feel as if they need a laugh track.- The New York Times
- Posted Oct 13, 2020
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