- Network: NBC
- Series Premiere Date: Sep 15, 2010
Watch Now
Where To Watch
| Stream On |
|
| Buy on |
|
Critic Reviews
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Smits' charisma, plus the fact that future episodes promise more intellectually involving stories, bode well for this series.
-
This series will require better scripts than the death-penalty pilot one, and those kids will have to establish personalities vivid enough to hold the screen with Smits' powerful one.
-
Outlaw isn't bad as much as bogus. The whole faulty premise creaks and groans under the weight of a now-you-see-it-now-you-don't shell game, as key plot points zip by, then are quickly tucked back under their shell in the vain hope you won't remember them, or maybe take them at face value.
-
Smits is breezily bold, but the show feels fussy--flushed out with "interesting" details and characters. [20 Sep 2010l p.54]
-
Prepare yourself for preachiness in the third degree. Mr. Smits went to Washington, and now is sharing his moral righteousness with the rest of us.
-
Like so many plot turns in Outlaw, this one is too convenient, too silly, and not a little audacious. It helps that the show knows it.
-
This show violates so many tenets of storytelling, it deserves to be tossed in the clink. Outlaw is about as entertaining as a legal brief on the case of Wall v. Paint Drying.
-
An impatience with subtlety is one of the problems with the first episode of Outlaw--the plot points and the performances are overblown, too obvious and too cute.
-
From "thinking aloud" scenes in which the team tosses around a Nerf football to a most unfortunate series of conversations between Garza and his law clerk, the only thing that makes Outlaw unique in a swollen genre is its ability to trip over its own feet so early on.
-
Despite a first-rate performance from Smits and a smart, sharp cast, the show stumbles over a clumsy setup from which, alas, it may be difficult to recover.
-
If you're able to get past the ridiculous premise--and, admittedly, I was not --Outlaw still suffers from other problems, including two-dimensional supporting characters.
-
It could work with better writing and a more grounded characterization, but instead the show just lurches between tones, and the lead performance, between Smits having a lark as a rascally rebel and Smits in high-dudgeon mode
-
There's not a hint of logic in the procedural aspect of the show. The development and the resolution of tonight's case, in which a man on death row is trying to prove he isn't a cop killer, represent the sloppiest, most factory-like TV writing there is. And there's not much realism afoot, either.
-
However you view it--mediocre "House" rip-off, improbable law show or "Like Father, Like Son 2: Judicial Boogaloo"--you have to like Jimmy Smits an awful lot to make Outlaw a Friday appointment. I'm as devoted an "NYPD Blue" fan as they come, and even I'm not willing to make that leap.
-
Outlaw is as absurdly plotted as too many movies, providing the basis for some two-hour ride that moves along fast enough to keep viewers from noticing the trucks whizzing through holes in the story. You need more than that for a weekly series. You need characters you can believe in.
-
TV needs a lot of fodder to fill the schedule, but junk like Outlaw should be outlawed, with a special-circumstances punishment for completely wasting as fine a talent as Jimmy Smits.
-
All of Jimmy Smits' considerable charisma can't come close to making a convincing case for Outlaw, a jaw-droppingly simple-minded legal procedural that's improbable on most every level.
-
So it will continue to be ludicrous. And that's without mentioning the predictability, cliches like kryptonite and emotional pandering. Here's hoping next season, Smits gets to play a cop again.
-
Not content to simply be stupid, Outlaw is more than a little insulting.
-
NBC's new Jimmy Smits vehicle is called Outlaw. I guess the title 'Contrived, Irritating Star Vehicle' just wasn't as catchy.
-
Silly, hackneyed and suffering from a lethal overdose of Hollywood political smugness, it's the biggest lawyer joke of all.
-
The show is so ludicrously dumb that your eyeballs will hurt from rolling so much.
-
NBC's idiotic drama, Outlaw, is so bad it should be listed as a Class A felony.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 7 out of 18
-
Mixed: 4 out of 18
-
Negative: 7 out of 18
-
Sep 18, 2010
-
Sep 23, 2011
-
Apr 10, 2011