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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
10
Mixed:
17
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
Aug 19, 2019
Season 1 Review:
It takes a few episodes for the series to introduce and spin out this cobbled mythology — and that will undoubtedly lose some people — but ultimately it works when it gets going. Carnival Row has a strong cast . ... If you're not into fantasy, that probably seems a real hodgepodge of mythos, but Carnival Row succeeds precisely because it's different (and looks expensive while creatively employing its CGI).
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Aug 30, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The divided world of the Burgue is harrowing enough to navigate with a killer on the prowl. Then add in the drama’s array of subplots only loosely connecting most parties during the first four episodes of season one, and at times, keeping all the stories in order feels akin to sorting through entrails — though much lovelier, of course, and peddled by extraordinary actors.
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Aug 28, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The main attraction of “Carnival Row” is, in fact, its incongruities—the familiar in unfamiliar places, an amalgamation of myths, tropes and themes wedded to each other despite their seeming incompatibilities. Not everything works in the show. But when it does, it takes flight.
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Aug 15, 2019
Season 1 Review:
At times, the mythology can feel needlessly complex, but there is something truly endearing about Carnival’s earnest, irony-free storytelling. Oddly, this splashy streamer production built around a movie star and a former model feels like an underdog — a Cones of Dunshire-style labor of love on a Jack Ryan budget.
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Aug 29, 2019
Season 1 Review:
While this series also begins with an unwieldy amount of place-setting involving a war that led to the current refugee crisis, “Carnival Row” proves more palatable than “The Dark Crystal.” The Amazon series is easier to follow even as it introduces initially-unconnected characters in multiple social classes. This gives “Carnival Row” plenty of areas to explore. If only it all felt more unique.
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Feb 15, 2023
Season 2 Review:
The creative team smartly kept the show’s universe manageable with tightly interwoven arcs, but the second season doesn’t retain that focus. Thus, the most promising character arcs grind to confounding halts, leaving key conflicts unresolved and ultimately failing to justify the inclusion of these subplots at all.
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Aug 29, 2019
Season 1 Review:
World building is hard enough, but as circus acts go, Carnival Row is like a juggler on a unicycle. It's kind of interesting to watch, but nobody really needs it. Nor does the prejudice directed at the mythological races really come alive, as allegorical as it might feel.
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Aug 16, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Not an episode goes by that doesn’t make one wonder what Carnival Row could have been had it not bitten off far more than it can chew. There’s much to like here—mostly the kaleidoscopic genre-mixing—but not enough to overcome the show’s confused handling of the socio-political allegory at its core. Would that this beast were more thoughtfully stitched together.
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Aug 16, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Ultimately, the world is much more interesting than the spree of murders within it, or the love story, such as it is, between Philo and Vinny. Carnival Row has built a fascinating metaphor for colonial power, resettlement, and migration—but doesn't quite know what to do with all that raw material.
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Aug 28, 2019
Season 1 Review:
What is by turns a Jack the Ripper riff, an Austen-style comedy of manners and a dark political thriller (starring the great Jared Harris), with a Dickensian street gang and a fairy brothel thrown in for kicks. These story lines rarely intersect with one another or with the show’s themes of anti-imperialism and tolerance in a way that justifies the collage of references. And hacky dialogue (“Oh, come now, woman!”) doesn’t help.
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