Bates Motel

The most believable character--and the real reason to check in to Bates Motel--is undoubtedly Farmiga's Norma.

A&E's Bates Motel is both mesmerizing and sometimes absurd in its rewind to Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) as a repressed 17-year-old.

This Bates Motel requires more than just a one-night stay. Once you slip in you may not want to check out.

Three episodes in, the story is certainly serpentine, at times self-consciously so. But there does appear to be writerly method in the madness. More important, there is Farmiga, and she, like Norma, appears up to any task.

All in all, its assured storytelling and fine performances give a worthy contemporary spin to a classic.

It brings its own style of spine-tingling dysfunction to the screen.

As odd as poor Norman is, there's something about Norma that gives Bates Motel its true, and truly frightening, center. Vulnerable and malign, Ms. Farmiga pretty much nails it.

Bates Motel turns out to be a worthy reimagining of the Norman Bates story.

Expect a slow(ish) rollout for Bates Motel, as the first couple of episodes establish character and location, before things take an uptick during episode three. But there’s more than enough intrigue and entertainment--on top of Farmiga’s outstanding turn--to keep viewers wanting more of this new-style nonhomage to Psycho.

Like "Psycho," it offers a deliciously scary stew of unexpected twists, murder and mind games.

Bates Motel builds psychological scares rather than spooking us with haunted-house cliches. Following these characters to the end we can see coming should be a fascinating journey.

For now, though, the credibility issues don't matter that much because we're more interested in the characters, who may not be all that credibly created themselves, but who are informed by Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece.

They’ve done a smart job of building a cryptic, threatening world around the disturbing relationship at its center.... Highmore is just right as Norman.... I’m less convinced by Farmiga, who doesn’t seem to have a strong fix on Norma’s motivations.

Bates Motel takes a few episodes to get going as the writers build the world of White Pine Bay, and the story appears poised to really kick into a higher gear with a revelation at the end of the third episode. Up to this point Bates Motel is an OK character drama, but in building the broader world it inhabits the show begins to come into sharper focus.

Maybe the most encouraging thing about this intriguing but imperfect Young Norman Bates Adventures show is that, in a time when dramas are determined to hook viewers with rapid-fire twists, it takes its time answering.

Curiously compelling.

A&E reboots the legend of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” but Bates Motel plays like a slow-burning riff on David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks” sparked by some fascinating, nuanced performances.

The lead performances, and the way that relationship is written, are all excellent enough to stick around a little while longer in the hopes that Bates Motel as a whole becomes something more interesting. But a lot of that may also depend on what exactly Cuse and Ehrin want Norman Bates to turn into, and how quickly.

The acting is solid all around--just not entirely convincing.

Things go bad quickly, which is to be expected. The challenge with this show will be to keep it appropriately Crazy Town without letting it get Loony Bin bad.

It ain’t Hitchcock, but it ain’t bad. Too bad it ain’t new.