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Critic Reviews
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Paxton's supported by a vast cast of vivid characters waging holy battle while chasing the almighty dollar. [11 Jan 2010, p.41]
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Big Love is very, very good this season.
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The financial stakes get considerably higher this season. Bill's new "casino and family fun center" results in briefcases full of cash.
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Fans will love every minute--especially Roman's fate.
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There's promise, plainly, of rich developments ahead.
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It's entertainment. And, as entertainment, it clearly fulfills its function.
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It's all very entertaining, and extremely well acted, but feels overly hectic. Not until next Sunday's episode, when Bill and Barbara's daughter Sarah makes a move toward determining her own future, does Big Love approach the kind of emotional, transcendent high that made so much of last season so memorable.
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At this point, the show's creative team has earned the latitude to trust that it knows where it's heading, as unpredictable and soapy (times three) as that path might appear. So while the series has so many plates spinning as to feel messy at times, the course of true "Love" never did run smooth.
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Even in the face of all this men’s realm intrigue, the most compelling aspect of Big Love remains the women.
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On a scene-by-scene basis, this is a truly great show. Great actors working with a great script and bringing these really beautiful, thoughtful exchanges alive....But the big picture of Big Love, the overarching narrative, is weaker than these scenes would suggest.
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When the show returns Sunday night, it's all business and not much pleasure for the Henrickson clan--and, in some ways, for us viewers, as well.
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Those "Huh?" moments, combined with the general creepiness of religious cults, makes Big Love uncomfortable at times. But for continuous action and a multitude of subplots with a minimum of bad language, it won't disappoint.
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All of the wives are more interesting than their husband. Paxton's character remains a problem for me and, as the pole on which this tent depends, a crucial one.
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As usual, it's all too busy, too tonally inconsistent (the scenes with Bill's parents seem to exist not only on a different series, but a different plane of reality) and too often obscures the terrific work being done by Tripplehorn, Sevigny, Goodwin and Seyfried.
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At its best, Big Love is an intricate soap opera rooted in family, but in this new season the show is spinning off into too many directions. None, taken individually, is terrible, but altogether these myriad plots create a lack of focus.
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HBO probably wants us to regard it as brilliant layering. But viewers who have three previous seasons' investment deserve Big Love's original (and more linear) sense of twisted heart and dark metaphor. Even the actors look alternately confused and pooped, empty shells of the characters they used to play.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 5 out of 12
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Mixed: 5 out of 12
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Negative: 2 out of 12
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LindaW.Jan 28, 2010Good show, but it just pisses me off how short the seasons are, and how long you have to wait until the next one.
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PaulR.Jan 12, 2010