Las Vegas Weekly's Scores

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For 148 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 8% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 90% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 16.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average TV Show review score: 50
Highest review score: 80 The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: Season 1
Lowest review score: 20 Scream Queens: Season 1
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 21 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 21
  3. Negative: 0 out of 21
21 tv reviews
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  1. Marvel's Daredevil: Season 1
    The series gets off to a slow start, parceling out bits of the title character’s origin story over flashbacks in the first two episodes, and taking its time to introduce the supporting cast. But once Vincent D’Onofrio appears onscreen as Wilson Fisk, the dapper crime-boss villain known in the Marvel comic books as Kingpin, things pick up considerably, and Fisk turns out to be an even more fascinating and complex character than the protagonist.
  2. The Catch: Season 1
    The first episode sets up a storyline with limited long-term potential, but it’s entertaining and stylish enough to be worth following to see where it leads.
  3. Room 104: Season 1
    Some of Room 104’s episodes do have a sort of half-formed quality to them, built around character relationships that seem like they are just getting started once the episode ends. But for the most part, the series is an intriguing experiment, allowing the Duplasses and their collaborators the chance to explore multiple genres and approaches.
  4. Anne with an E: Season 1
    The generations who grew up with previous incarnations of Anne might not have their favorites supplanted, but the new series offers a promising introduction to the character for a new audience.
  5. Supergirl (2015): Season 1
    The show sometimes goes too far with Kara’s rom-com-style personal life, but it never undermines her superheroics, and she holds her own against a nasty villain in the first episode.... It’s a promising--if a bit overly familiar--start.
  6. Westworld: Season 1
    From a plotting standpoint, the show doesn’t always make logical sense, but it looks amazing (every penny of the huge budget is evident onscreen) and features multiple strong performances (Thandie Newton and Shannon Woodward are additional standouts).
  7. The Grinder: Season 1
    The family sitcom material is less effective, although that could develop over time, especially as the joke of a TV lawyer practicing real law inevitably loses its novelty. For now, it’s clever enough to make The Grinder one of the better new comedies of the fall season.
  8. 12 Monkeys (2015): Season 1
    It’s an entertaining genre series with some fun performances, but it doesn’t make the same lasting impression as the works that inspired it.
  9. The Wizard of Lies
    While the movie spends comparatively little time on the thousands of people Madoff defrauded (acknowledging them in a couple of brief but intense montages), it conveys the severity of his crimes in the devastation of his immediate family, showing how he did lasting damage to the people he loved most, and none of them ever understood why.
  10. Legion: Season 1
    The show’s narrative trickery is a reflection of David’s fractured psyche. That can be more frustrating than illuminating, but the dazzling visual style makes the deliberately confusing narrative easier to embrace, and Stevens is fantastic as the conflicted but eager title character.
  11. Battle Creek: Season 1
    Battle Creek is unlikely to inspire the same kind of praise and devotion as Breaking Bad, but it’s an entertaining exercise in typical TV crime-solving.
  12. The Last Man on Earth: Season 1
    The humor in Last Man is often more disturbing than laugh-out-loud funny, and some of it can be off-putting. But the show is more ambitious than any other current network comedy, and in just two episodes it pushes forward in bold, even reckless ways.
  13. Marvel's Runaways: Season 1
    Sometimes the sheer number of characters gets a bit unwieldy, and the interpersonal drama is less thrilling than the prospect of colorful superhero action (which goes mostly unfulfilled in the first four episodes). But the teen characters are likable and grounded, and worth watching even when they aren’t tapping into their superpowers.
  14. Snowfall: Season 1
    The acting is mediocre all around, and the direction is slick but anonymous, with the look of any number of B-movie crime thrillers. That would be okay for a show with B-movie ambitions, but Snowfall seems to be aiming higher, only to fall back on the kind of overused devices it should be subverting.
  15. When We Rise: Season 1
    As a tool for outreach, the show is admirable, but as drama, it falls short of its ambitions.
  16. Get Shorty: Season 1
    The showbiz material is pretty thin, and much of the series takes place in dusty desert locations (shot in New Mexico), focusing on tired crime-drama devices. There’s none of the playful humor of Sonnenfeld’s film (there’s barely any humor at all), or the sly cleverness of Leonard’s crime novels (captured much more effectively in the Leonard-based Justified).
  17. Alias Grace: Season 1
    It’s still mostly restrained and respectable, though, with modest production values and uneven performances.
  18. LA to Vegas: Season 1
    With jokes about strippers, quickie weddings and niche conventions, the show certainly doesn’t have a sophisticated or original take on Vegas. Its take on air travel is slightly fresher, but for the most part it occupies the same sitcom level as the budget airline for which its characters work.
  19. The Young Pope: Season 1
    It’s often too straight-faced to be satirical, and the hodge-podge of accents sometimes undercuts the dramatic intensity.
  20. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: Season 1
    As a TV show, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is mildly entertaining, and genre fans who aren’t familiar with the book might find parts of it enjoyable. But for all its flash, it’s missing an essential ingredient--magic.
  21. Godless: Season 1
    The thrilling final battle is masterfully staged. It takes far too long to get there, though, with entire episodes in the middle of the series that seemingly could have been removed entirely.
  22. FEUD: Season 1
    There’s a juicy, entertaining and still-timely Hollywood story hidden under the show’s typically Murphian excesses.
  23. Empire (2015): Season 1
    Having a prominent gay character on a hip-hop drama is still a step in the right direction, though, and Empire’s characters might develop greater nuance as the show progresses. For now, it’s a trashy soap with one entertaining performance.
  24. Togetherness: Season 1
    The acting is strong, but the show strains for deeper meaning when its best modes are relaxed and observational.
  25. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
    It’s often hokey and overstated, with Winfrey giving a broad, showy performance. By the end, you get the idea that Henrietta Lacks was very important, but as a person, she remains distant.
  26. The Alienist: Season 1
    Both the tone and the visual style are dark and murky, and while some of the historical details are fascinating, the crime drama around them is tedious and tiresome in any era.
  27. The Jim Gaffigan Show: Season 1
    Gaffigan’s show was originally developed for CBS, and it has the safe, middle-of-the-road quality of most CBS sitcoms, which makes it just right for TV Land’s mild reinvention.
  28. Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders: Season 1
    The most successful shows of the current true-crime boom do more than just lay out the facts, but there isn’t much indication that True Crime will be more than a competently produced eight-part Law & Order episode.
  29. A Very Murray Christmas
    Like Murray’s endearing real-life antics, the show was probably loads of fun for the people involved, but the feeling doesn’t necessarily carry over to the viewing audience.
  30. Jean-Claude Van Johnson: Season 1
    The six-episode season gets increasingly outlandish, eventually including time travel, doppelgangers and a machine that controls the weather. It’s not quite enough to transcend the mediocre comedy, thin characters and rote fight scenes, but at least it’s more entertaining than another assembly-line D-level action movie.
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