Briarpatch

Characters flirt with type but finally come across as original and real and thus worth caring about, while the performances are first rate, rooted in decades of film history but individual and modern at the same time.

Even at its murkiest, Briarpatch is furiously entertaining and wildly unpredictable. It's that rare thrill ride with smarts--and exotic animals. [3-16 Feb 2020, p.8]

Dawson is a confident lead. ... She’s joined by a beautifully cast group of eccentrics. ... “Briarpatch” isn’t weighty, and thank heavens for that. There’s something to be said for a show that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that goes down as easy as a frosty drink on a hot afternoon.

USA’s plan is to treat “Briarpatch” as an anthology, and to create subsequent seasons focusing on new characters within its creative world. Based on their success with Allegra, it’s easy to imagine that’s doable; for now, though, the time we have with this well-wrought, sharply observant but fallible sleuth is reward enough.

Slick, colorful ... "Briarpatch" isn’t a knockout — much of the fun is in the discovery; in seeing the weird things emerge, not return.

The world that Andy Greenwald has set up in Briarpatch is one that’s worth visiting, despite the heavy hand on quirk.

There was a lot of potential for Briarpatch, and the series is definitely watchable, but by never fully committing to one thing, it ends up with several interesting ideas rotating around one another rather than coming together to tell a fully realized story.

Briarpatch has a wonderful cast and some inspired ideas; if it can slow down and figure out a more elegant way to deliver its fusion of icy cool and ramshackle quirk, St. Boniface will become a wry and appealing place for viewers to put down some roots.

A self-consciously strange series can’t quite settle on a tone. Sometimes absurdly funny, other times a little dull and draggy.

Briarpatch wasn’t the subtlest of shows (see the zoo metaphor), but it was sleek and propulsive enough to make me want to find out more.

The whole thing has decent energy, and boasts enough interesting visual flourishes that it’s tempting to let it slide by purely on style points. But it’s hard to locate the humanity buried underneath all this style. Like fellow oddballs Claws and On Becoming a God in Central Florida, Briarpatch tries to get by solely on quirk at times — but, sadly, man cannot live on quirk alone.

There's nobody to love or even like much in Briarpatch. Even Allegra is flat and withdrawn; her insistence on staying to pursue the case is driven by intellect rather than emotion.

Briarpatch is lovely to look at and its story clicks along at an entertaining clip. The trouble is that the second you stop watching it, none of its burrs stick.

Maybe Briarpatch will become trippier and stranger as it establishes its footing. Or maybe it will become funnier, sexier and more viscerally compelling. It's currently stuck somewhere in the middle, not really all that satisfying but not without potential.