Dare Me

When the main source of drama is unclear intentions or mixed signals, “Dare Me” wears its hazy, dreamlike exterior well. As the season progresses and those nightmares become a little more literal, the cuts between hallucinations and reality become slightly less effective. But when that disorienting, who-to-believe framework gets reflected from multiple angles, “Dare Me” truly delivers.

A smart and soapy noir work about the tensions between teenage girls, as well as an adult coach who still behaves like a teenage girl.

A wicked thriller that practically demands that its audience gorge upon it. It’s lush and seductive, a fact that it’s both aware of and uses to chilling effect.

A worthwhile time investment for midseason, offering something more venturesome than your standard good time with bad people. It's a safari tour among commonplace predators so accustomed to feasting on readily available prey that they don't catch the scent of a fresh danger before it closes in.

It’s a sharp character portrait and a dreamy mood piece, one style inflecting the other.

Dare Me features a tantalizing blend of guilty-pleasure trashiness, smart genre deconstruction and unfiltered, darkly comic adrenaline. ... Think Wild Things, only less exploitative. Or just think a classed-up neo-noir, veering into Hitchcock.

Having foreshadowed the mystery to come, the show spends much of the season presenting us with suspects for a crime that hasn’t happened yet, and that isn’t always an exciting process ... The show generally succeeds, though, in approximating the dreamlike quality of the book.