Greenleaf

:

Season 1
  • Network: OWN
  • Series Premiere Date: Jun 21, 2016
Season #: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Metascore
68

Generally favorable reviews - based on 21 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 21
  3. Negative: 0 out of 21
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Critic Reviews

  1. The Wrap
    Reviewed by: Mekeisha Madden Toby
    Jun 21, 2016
    60
    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.
  2. TV Guide Magazine
    Reviewed by: Matt Roush
    Jun 16, 2016
    60
    A glossy guilty pleasure that aspires to be Empire with pews. [20-26 Jun 2016, p.17]
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  3. The Salt Lake Tribune
    Reviewed by: Scott D. Pierce
    Jun 15, 2016
    60
    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.
  5. Time
    Reviewed by: Daniel D'Addario
    Jun 23, 2016
    50
    A soap that alternates between unartfully delivered exposition, provocative weirdness and real insight.
  6. We Got This Covered
    Reviewed by: Mitchel Broussard
    Jun 22, 2016
    50
    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.
  7. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: David Wiegand
    Jun 20, 2016
    50
    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.
  8. Sioux City Journal
    Reviewed by: Bruce Miller
    Jun 13, 2016
    50
    The drama that surrounds them is fairly familiar and hardly religion-specific. Greenleaf World Ministries needs more of the details that would make this more than just another soap opera.