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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
4
Mixed:
4
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
RogerEbert.comJan 25, 2019
Season 1 Review:
If you’re hoping to be simultaneously challenged and made deeply anxious, look no further. And if the quest for rightness in a world that too often makes rightness impossible compels you, Black Earth Rising is well worth your time. Just give yourself something to grab, or touch, or press while you watch it. The steadiness will help.
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Jan 24, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Like David Simon, Blick is the kind of storyteller who's drawn to a form of bleak realism because that's where the tough stories that need to be told reside. In that sense, his work requires something of a commitment from viewers, but Black Earth Rising and Blick's previous work illustrate that it's one worth making.
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Jan 25, 2019
Jan 23, 2019
Jan 25, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Black Earth Rising’s focus on moving outward, on widening the scope of the investigations and recriminations to put the whole system on trial, is admirable, but in so doing, the series loses sight of its lead character. The story starts and ends with Kate, but after eight hours, we still have little sense of how she’s coping with survivor’s guilt, mental illness, navigating two cultures, or any of the fallout from challenging rich white men who live on estates with driveways the size of football fields.
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Jan 24, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Blick is so unsubtle as a writer and, it appears, so unhelpful as a director that he torpedoes the fine actresses he casts. ... Along the way the series occasionally generates some suspense, and it’s pretty to look at, thanks to the cinematographer Hubert Taczanowski. Despite its deficiencies as drama, it also deserves credit for tying its narrative to recent African history and giving serious consideration to shattering events outside the Western Hemisphere.
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Jan 24, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Suspenseful but uneven drama. ... While the eight-part series deftly unpacks difficult questions about neocolonialism and the effect of geopolitics on the pursuit of justice, it’s less successful in forging a strong bond between viewers and the characters on screen.
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Jan 22, 2019
Season 1 Review:
[Black Earth Rising] squanders the audience’s goodwill with ill-conceived narrative turns, a reliance on cliché, and, worst, dialogue that defies belief. Its potential resonances as a story about how we metabolize, and prosecute, the worst of crimes ends up, soon enough, squandered as the audience loses faith in the story and its telling. ... Which raises questions about why Black Earth Rising exists at all, so inept is it at conveying the struggle at its center.
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