Greenleaf

As with many soapy dramas, Greenleaf’s strength lies more in its performances than its writing, though Wright and his team are surprisingly restrained, even as they build to histrionic cliffhangers.

As a viewing experience, Greenleaf is absorbing, hardly pulse-quickening.

Dandridge is a standout as the sister rediscovering her love of faith even as her doubts about her family grow.

As soap, Greenleaf bubbles with an abundance of intrigue and too many clichés. ... Still, the characters are compelling enough, and the performances are uniformly strong, if a touch too serious.

The big family doesn’t quite sort itself out in the first two episodes, with a second airing Wednesday.

Greenleaf packs a lot of plot into its first few episodes, building gracefully to revelations and confrontations, and playing to its actors' strengths.

With a talented ensemble and exquisite location work, it’s a solid night-time soap with top notes of consciousness-raising and the added bonus of returning Winfrey to the flat screen (albeit in a co-starring role).

The family has its sordid secrets--what TV family doesn't?--but Greenleaf stands out in those moments when we see how much Grace misses the life she once thought she had, one of absolute, or at least less complicated, belief.

The series is uneven, but in an intriguing way--it keeps you wanting to see more.

Ms. Dandridge makes a positive impression as the show’s lead character and it helps that she has such strong support from Mr. David and especially Ms. Whitfield, whose character proves an effortlessly serene scene-stealer.

All in all, though Greenleaf strays a bit, it manages to balance its many priorities with something that approaches grace, which is only appropriate for a story set in the house of the Lord.

It remains to be seen how well Greenleaf will hold attention after the novelty wears off and the storylines have to stand on their own, but after three episodes it's a promising start.

The tension between true worship and religious lip service gives Greenleaf an extra spark.

For all of its ambition, the drama feels lopsided at times because Winfrey, Whitfield, David and Dandridge’s performances are so dominate and riveting, they dwarf everything else. In order to compel viewers to keep coming back, Wright and company will have to either focus solely on the big four--more Oprah, please--or flesh out the ancillary portrayals so that they’re more distinctive.

A glossy guilty pleasure that aspires to be Empire with pews. [20-26 Jun 2016, p.17]

Greenleaf is a big ol' soap opera. A pretty good soap, as a matter of fact, filled with more than its share of characters who are instantly unlikable.

A soap that alternates between unartfully delivered exposition, provocative weirdness and real insight.

The show is earnest--perhaps to a fault--but its hollow stakes have the tension of a wet blanket and its most interesting offerings in the way of gripping television, mainly centering on a few intriguing theological disputes, are far too fleeting.

Wright has thrown everything into the mare’s nest of a plot you can think of--and the reason you can think of it is because most of it is pretty standard for nighttime soap operas. The one unexpected element, of course, is religion.