Flack

[Pop's] most polished offering to date, serving as a reminder that in this age of international TV production, a binge-worthy show can, er, pop up anywhere.

Its six episodes will attract or repel you depending on your tolerance for the antics of the horrible privileged class--or perhaps the privileged horrible class--and watching characters you want to like let you, themselves and one another down. It can annoy you one moment and move you another. ... Barring a few passages where a thematic point is too explicitly made, Lansley writes believable dialogue; his scenes unfold discursively, taking interesting, meandering paths even to expected ends.

Fast, frothy and fun, “Flack” only falters when it slows down and tries to get serious about Robyn’s issues – her mentally ill mother committed suicide; Robyn may have some mental health challenges, too – but when it sticks to its soapier agenda, “Flack” moves like a runaway train.

The show is new to Amazon, but the British audience for this blend of gossip, sex, drugs and “issues” ate “Flack” up.

Not terribly fresh, then, but still huge fun.

Ultimately, Flack believes that we’re concerned with the characters’ personal lives, but mines very little compelling material from the subject, while it focuses less attention on their professional dynamic, which is its foremost strength. Still, it’s worth saying: Paquin, Okonedo, and Wilson are a powerful trio, and they might succeed in reshaping Flack’s narrative yet.

In its best moments, Flack is a bleak workplace comedy studded with talent. ... Outside the office, Flack engages in the most exasperating kinds of story lines about women written by men, namely those involving fertility and reproduction.

A spy show mixed with an awkward romantic-comedy. Imagine if “Grey’s Anatomy’s” Shonda Rhimes decided to remake “Get Smart” as a drama and you get a sense of the tones at war here.

Flack can't explain what these publicists do or why they do it. The better material in Flack is based on character interactions and the cast. Paquin can't do anything about how predictable Robyn's self-destructive tendencies immediately become, but she delivers Lansley's dialogue well and has good chemistry with both Wilson, enjoyably smiling her way through some peak cattiness, and especially Angelson, saddled with the worst of the show's "Dear Lord are we doing this exact character again?" archetypes.

Flack is often too blunt to be as interesting as it palpably wants to be, burying any shred of nuance by underlining its themes in red marker to make sure you can’t miss them.