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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
34
Mixed:
9
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
Nov 1, 2021
Season 3 Review:
Season 3 of Dickinson is an emotionally powerful and fulfilling journey through the final seconds of the final episode that found this reviewer’s eyes wet multiple times. ... What Smith has done is use Dickinson’s work as inspiration to create a new, artistic feat of her own (along with the hundreds of other people who work on the series), one that redefines what television can be.
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Dec 21, 2020
Season 2 Review:
It’s the quieter parts that make the show truly special. ... You have an emotional rollercoaster that is evocative in the way few other TV shows can hope to reach; but one that is well worth riding. Emily and Sue aren’t the only stand-out characters this season, which finds every member of the cast struggling with growing up in different ways. ... By season’s end, everything — for Emily, for Sue, for all of the Dickinsons, for America — has changed. But in our world, we at least have these two perfect seasons of television to hold on to.
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Nov 8, 2021
Season 3 Review:
Steinfeld is reliably magnetic and radiates great confidence. ... The series tries to underscore a connection that’s much more tenuous here than it was in season two, when both Emily and Henry were wrestling with the need to be published. This is one of the few instances this season where the show overplays its hand, but Dickinson easily makes up for it with trenchant commentary on the limits of allyship.
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Jan 6, 2021
Season 2 Review:
The entire run of Season 2 finds every aspect of Emily’s untellable story thriving under Smith and Steinfeld’s vision. ... Season 2 gives [Hailee Steinfeld] even more to work with: namely, the question of fame, and whether or not it’s dangerous to seek it out; and also the question of love, and whether or not the world needs or deserves to know where your heart lives
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Oct 28, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Dickinson is so fun and so strange and so tireless in handing out little moments of character development, with wildly original mood setting. ... With only three episodes provided for review and all of Emily’s real, long life such a legit mystery, it’s difficult to gauge what the central arc of the whole season might be. But with such gorgeous cinematography, costuming, and metatextual design, and with every actor putting in such fun, charming, deeply specific (read: often deeply odd) performances—and with Smith and Steinfeld, especially, so blazingly self-confident in their vision—it seems entirely likely that Dickinson will be one of the brightest debuts of 2019.
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Nov 5, 2021
Season 3 Review:
I think Smith’s bizarre creation caught on—amid so many voluminous streaming slates padded out with interchangeable titles—because it felt so alive and impassioned, in all its messiness. That emotional momentum kept building, and now it suffuses the show’s third, final and most ambitious season.
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Nov 2, 2021
Season 3 Review:
And yet, with the inevitable arrival of both the Civil War and Sue and Austin’s first baby, this third and final season of Dickinson nevertheless finds new ground to tread. Now, whether that ground is always emotionally consistent—well, that’s another question, entirely. ... That said, Emily herself continues this season to prove a constant wash of genius and heart.
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The PlaylistJan 8, 2021
Season 2 Review:
[Steinfeld 's] performance, perhaps to the surprise of none, is quite good, and partial credit for that goes to how much more liberated Steinfeld is now that the series has wandered beyond what’s known about Dickinson as a person, poet, and genius; she’s better able now to make the role fully hers, vulnerable, sharp, self-assured yet utterly uncertain of herself at the same time, and of course absolutely side-splitting.
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Oct 28, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Steinfeld is excellent as Emily, armed with a delightful, Wednesday Addams-like morbid streak. (When her sister compliments the “lovely funeral” they just attended, Emily sniffs: “Mine will be better.”) Of all of Apple’s new shows, this one actually made me want to watch a second episode, and has the kind of breakout potential that a new streaming service desperately needs.
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Jan 20, 2021
Season 2 Review:
The running device of the Nobody apparition makes Season 2, while still raucously funny, a more serious and spooky outing. So does the advance of real-life history, as the Civil War looms closer. ... There is little hard documentation from this period in the poet’s life. All of which frees this show to take poetic license — to tell its version of the truth, but to tell it weirdly, delightfully slant.
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Nov 6, 2019
Season 1 Review:
To be sure, Peak Content has demonstrated a bit too much fondness for the “[notable figure], but cool” dramatic premise, which has yielded both hits (Riverdale) and bombs (remember Will?). But Dickinson has so much to imagine about Emily—and such a sense of humor—that the idea feels fresh.
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Nov 1, 2019
Season 1 Review:
There’s a wackiness and disregard for convention that will no doubt put off purists, but the “Dickinson” isn’t meant to be literal, rather its own poetic take on Emily’s life and the society that formed her. It’s bonkers, joyous, and possibly the best series on Apple TV+.
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Oct 29, 2019
Oct 29, 2019
Season 1 Review:
While it’s hard to imagine this Emily is introspective enough to be any kind of poet, let alone Emily Dickinson, the show is unassuming and charming, mixing things up to convey the jarring weirdness of being ahead of one’s time. I think it would be a hit on Netflix.
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Oct 28, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Bucking the currently flourishing trend of gritty teen drams, Smith takes what could have been a morose tale and adds an element of much-needed fun, making a towering cultural figure approachable for a younger (or not-as-knowledgeable) audience. While it’s too early to call it poetry in motion, Dickinson shows real promise.
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IndieWireOct 28, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Wwithin “Dickinson” is the still-nascent potential for something beautiful, waiting to burst forth like a morning glory, so long as its promise is cultivated with care. For some, the seemingly trivial affairs of young women will always seem little more than filler. But for others, those who “Dickinson” understands whole-heartedly, they know it’s a matter of life and Death.
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Jan 7, 2021
Season 2 Review:
Dickinson is the same show it already was, slightly less in some areas, slightly more in others. Like Samuel Bowles, you may be giddy with its presence at times, then unexpectedly bored moments later. But that’s almost by design. Consistency will never be part of Dickinson‘s brand.
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Oct 31, 2019
Season 1 Review:
As thoroughly bonkers as this “Dickinson” is, I was in awe of the nerve of it all. I can’t tell you exactly what tone show creator Alena Smith is aiming for — satire, spoof, revisionist drama, cultural kaleidoscope, flagrant attention grab. But I can tell you that she is going for broke with it all, refusing to give in to narrative expectations. It is — from sheer fearlessness — a thing to see, if not to follow.
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RogerEbert.comOct 31, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Its willingness to just go for it, to embrace its peculiar blend of anachronism, angst, irony, self-awareness, and unabashed youthfulness, proves so winning that even when the show’s sprint sends it face-first into a wall, you can’t help but admire its gusto. And run into walls, it does.
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Oct 29, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The show is kind of a mess, veering between empathetic depictions of its hero’s struggles against the social norms of her time and slapstick humor that recalls Comedy Central’s costume-drama parody Another Period. Yet it’s never boring. And to the extent that it represents Apple’s bravery in taking on a strange project from a first-time creator, Alena Smith, Dickinson may be the most promising show to come out of the service’s initial lineup.
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Oct 28, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Creator Alena Smith has thought the world out well, and the show feels grounded in its own reality. It doesn't overdo the ironic modernity, instead sprinkling a handful of mild swear words and slang terms into each episode in a way that doesn't take the viewer out of the story. It's pretty artfully done.
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Nov 4, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Fan fiction may not be the best way to describe Dickinson, but I think it captures the overall adoration of the poet that went into the making of this show. ... All of this is pretty engaging. But then at seemingly random moments Dickinson shape-shifts into a sitcom, and that’s where it loses me.
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Oct 31, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The mishmash of tone and slang give Dickinson an endearingly weird energy. And Steinfeld is already such a bundle of charisma that she papers over some of the sillier choices. Does Dickinson capture the spirit of its title character? Not really. Is it a good show? Probably not. But it’s at least more interesting than most of Apple’s bland freshman class.
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The Daily BeastOct 31, 2019
Season 1 Review:
As far as plots go, the one in Dickinson is rather thin, which is actually fine. It makes it more of a pleasure to spend time with the characters—chiefly Steinfeld as Emily. The young actress has a commanding, sardonic-sweet screen presence, and she’s fantastic casting in this. ... But things are too mishmashed. There’s too little continuity, or rhyme or reason, for what elements are period-accurate and what gets cheekily updated to today. Things are bonkers and fun at first, then repetitive and exhausting.
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Oct 28, 2019
Oct 28, 2019
Season 1 Review:
in wanting to be both a serious teen drama and a black comedy simultaneously, the half-hour show instead comes off as tonally incongruous, awash in wry hipster flatness. Irony, though, is a tool — not a genre. ... When Dickinson does work, it's mainly due to Steinfeld's loose, irreverent tenacity and the organic eroticism shared between her Emily and Hunt's Sue.
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