Atlanta

The episodes surf hypnotically along, succeeding less on thematic concerns and more on Atlanta’s unerring knack for portraiture. The show introduces us to its world and its inhabitants without declaring its intent in every other scene.

Atlanta is one of the year’s best, and it is like nothing else on television, maybe ever. Imagine a series with the ambition and charge of The Wire, the reflective gallows comedy of Louie, and Glover’s unique brand of subtle brilliance--and then you’ll be getting close to having some sense of where Atlanta seems to be heading. It’s a series you can’t afford to miss.

It sounds like something out of NBC’s Must-See TV but Glover and his talented team of writers not only make it feel real, they make it feel essential.

It’s much more real, honest and thought provoking than any program I’ve seen this year. Unique in every respect, Atlanta is a hands down one of this fall’s best new series.

Dry and offbeat, with an immediate, original voice, this comedy is a back-roads drive through the expansive territory between rags and riches.

Driven by Glover’s charm and throwaway wit, Atlanta both compels and mystifies.

Atlanta and Better Things take C.K.’s refinements to a new level, merge them with worldviews that you rarely see represented on TV, and tell their stories with such economy and grace that you might feel as if a new language were being worked out before your eyes.

The TV breakout Glover fans have been waiting for, also unlike anything else on TV.

Though the show contains laugh-out-loud moments, it occasionally proves to be more melancholy than mirthful. Along the way, it has some sharp things to say about race, gender, the absurdity of celebrity and the nagging fear of failure. Glover's Atlanta, it turns out, has all the right beats.

The scripts for the four episodes made available to critics are as richly nuanced as anything you’ll see on TV or, to be sure, in a movie theater. You will not only know these characters after only one episode, you’ll be hooked on them, as well. In so many areas, Atlanta sets the bar exceptionally high.

For now, Glover’s series feels like it’s on the cusp of something great. We’ll be watching.

“We need a chance to fail,” says Earn, bemoaning a one-chance (or no-chance), perfection-or-bust culture. Atlanta--a triumph of risk taking by its network and creator--moves you with this truth and others.

If Atlanta is a surprise, it's frequently an excellent one.

The series exudes warmth and grace even in its smallest moments without losing sight of its sense of humor.

An intense drug deal plays out with character-based nuance, more about the personalities in the room than the chance that guns will start blazing, while an episode set largely in the holding room of a jail finds drama in the assorted, transfixing plights of one-off characters.

The result is a series that is shrewd, emotional, and impolite, with a style that veers toward pretentiousness but never crosses over. Atlanta has quiet craftiness and the power of precision.

It’s melancholy, amusing, clever, insightful, humane, and, with its beautifully shot Atlanta location, steeped in local specificity. There are a few moments in the four episodes sent to critics when the emotional beats are hazy, the ideas vague, the vibe too meditative; but there are many, many more points when the show blows you away with its intelligence, humanity, and unwillingness to rush or telegraph any of its jokes or misfortunes.

What makes Atlanta special is the way it adds texture and flavor to a core you already know, and the reason the show is so compulsively watchable is that it perfectly executes that core.

Atlanta, the new half-hour FX series from Donald Glover (Community), is satisfying and exciting on every level.

Atlanta is subtle and human, a beautifully played comedy of place and character.

The deliberate pacing and dreamy, surreal tone of Atlanta may prove too off-putting for viewers searching for easy entertainment. But those thirsting for a fearless, fresh perspective in comedy will find much to appreciate here.

Danny Glover's Atlanta is steeped in an urban hard-knocks authenticity. [5-18 Sep 2016, p.22]

A finished, cinematic, and beautiful production that may be one of the best new shows of the fall.

Its simplicity and execution are shockingly self-assured as it avoids being pigeonholed.

Atlanta exhilaratingly explores the complicated intersections between pop culture, capitalism, and crime, revealing them all to be united by the notion of sales trumping morality and even reality.

Glover has created a show that is difficult to pigeonhole and supremely addictive.

Atlanta is very distinctively [Glover's] baby through and through.

Atlanta is ambitious and atmospheric and adolescent, skeptical of seemingly easy pleasures.

Ultimately, this meandering, often brilliant show is held together by Glover, whose charming, sensitive presence is akin to the way Atlanta bops along on its own bemused frequency.

Atlanta provides an interesting slice of life and a slice that's not often seen on TV.

One thing Atlanta does particularly well is to convey the shakiness of an economy in which a child of working- or middle-class parents can struggle, even end up homeless, setting it against the backdrop of the less-official economy on which many rely. That Atlanta manages to be drily funny, too, is a gift.

Like Baskets or even Louie, Atlanta is a deeply specific portrait of a certain way of life, one that’s often desperate but that’s tempered--for our benefit--by a casual, sometimes even caustic humor. These moments are occasionally punctuated by bursts of violence, some of them shocking, but it never feels like there’s a statement being made so much as truth being shown.

Atlanta is deep, even a tad dark, and refreshingly different from the screwball wackiness of “Community.”

For the better, Atlanta is a comedy that's not satisfied with making viewers laugh; it has something to say.