Cult
The CW | CW | Release Date: February 19, 2013
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
46
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
9
Negative:
6

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
New York PostLinda StasiFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: This series-in-a-series is an innovative and creative way to make TV, which I love. What would I have loved even more? A scripted series about a scary, charismatic cult leader. Read full review
75
NewsdayVerne GayFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: A not-bad techno-thriller that could go interesting places. Read full review
70
Zap2it (Inside the Box)Laurel BrownFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: It takes awhile to get into the investigation launched by Jeff and Skye. At the same time, the fictional "Cult" TV show seems more compelling than the real Cult TV show we're watching. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyKen TuckerFeb 15, 2013
Season 1 Review: It's a great premise, but the show-within-the-show is so hammy, it's hard to imagine any viewer killing in its honor. [22 Feb 2013, p.70]
67
The Detroit NewsTom LongFeb 15, 2013
Season 1 Review: You get the feeling creator Rockne S. O'Bannon is building a puzzle box to nowhere here, but Knepper's malevolent glare sets a nice, unhinged tone, and there's certainly plenty of room to move forward. Read full review
58
Uncle BarkyEd BarkFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: It somehow manages to be more inviting than ABC's new and thoroughly preposterous Zero Hour, although both series could be the stuff of sadistic semester-ending writing essays. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMary McNamaraFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: Cult has just the right amount of preposterous dialogue and clunky transitions to draw potential hate-watchers too, a bit of zeitgeist juggling that is both slightly nauseating and admirable. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: The opening episode is wildly uneven, at times downright irritating. But it's equally intriguing, compelling, and full of potential. Read full review
50
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob OwenFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: So although the details aren't quite right, the concept of Cult remains intriguing. Perhaps, like Mr. O'Bannon's "Farscape," Cult will improve over time. Read full review
50
The New York TimesMike HaleFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: The occasional half-decent joke aside, the pilot episode of (the real) Cult is largely derivative, with a style and atmosphere reminiscent of better CW shows like “Supernatural” and “The Vampire Diaries,” and a mildly interesting, at best, metaphysical-mystery component that feels borrowed from “Lost.” Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleDavid WiegandFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: Beyond the gimmick, will there be enough to maintain our interest? If not, Cult could easily wind up as one TV show in search of an audience. Read full review
40
Boston GlobeMatthew GilbertFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: Cult is too messy and unnecessarily complex to be the show it could and should be. Read full review
40
SalonWilla PaskinFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: The show has got a ponderous B-movie quality, everything so serious and simultaneously so silly. Read full review
40
VarietyBrian LowryFeb 14, 2013
Season 1 Review: The shiny exterior and show-within-a-show construct can't obscure the pilot's general incoherence--or nagging questions about where any of this might be heading. Read full review
37
St. Louis Post-DispatchGail PenningtonFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: Knepper is wonderfully creepy. But that's the last of the good news. From Rockne S. O'Bannon, Cult is too complicated for its own good, and not satisfying enough to make it worth figuring out. Read full review
30
Miami HeraldGlenn GarvinFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: Watching Cult is like trying to read a Kafka novel in Sanskrit. When you’re blind. And drunk. Read full review
25
HitfixDaniel FienbergFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: An ill-conceived, poorly scripted, woodenly acted mess, Cult is watchably crazy, but that's the highest praise I can give it. Read full review
25
Boston HeraldMark A. PerigardFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: This is not an easy show to watch, not because of its ambition, but because it’s just so pointlessly mysterious. Read full review
20
The Hollywood ReporterTim GoodmanFeb 20, 2013
Season 1 Review: It's definitely too laughably convoluted to go into. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsDavid HinckleyFeb 19, 2013
Season 1 Review: Some scenes play like those stiff “re-creations” in crime reality shows and the camera’s constant quick-cuts promote headaches, not intrigue. Read full review
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