- Network: AppleTV+
- Series Premiere Date: Oct 12, 2023
Critic Reviews
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This terrifically entertaining eight-part series more than meets them [expectations]--think The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as a Ph.D. candidate--as the emotionally repressed Elizabeth opens her life and her heart to memorable characters who challenge and appreciate her. [16 Oct - 5 Nov 2023, p.8]
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For fans of peak TV, the debut of “Lessons in Chemistry” is a sublime confection that sets a new table for period drama enthusiasts looking for a show with bite.
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Take some time to yourself to embark on the journey Lessons in Chemistry lays out. You'll probably be surprised by the turns it takes, but that doesn't make the end result any less satisfying.
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“Lessons in Chemistry” is a joy to watch, an escape with a clear-cut and righteous perspective.
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Larson does a credible job of playing a character fundamentally at odds with her own story, but it’s the supporting actors—especially King and Pullman, their faces conveying a flickering, complicated vulnerability—who give the series its most moving scenes.
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Lessons In Chemistry contains layers of ingredients that build on and play off of each other: romance, drama, history, the second wave of feminism, all snuggled neatly into a 13 x 9 pan. When combined, they’re all greater than the sum of their parts.
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This is a well-made and beautifully-envisioned series whose niggles come from not from laziness, but an excess of ambition.
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Some of the dialogue is rather on the nose, and on occasion, too many ingredients are thrown into the mix. Creator Lee Eisenberg does an impressive job of maintaining the heart of Lessons in Chemistry’s bestselling source material while making some necessary changes. On the whole, it’s a winning recipe.
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Lessons in Chemistry is far from flawless; even those (like me) who’ve never read the Bonnie Garmus novel on which it’s based will be able to feel the seams where the source material and the adaptation do not quite mesh. Nevertheless, it’s worth tucking into, thanks to an endearing cast, witty dialogue and easily digestible themes.
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“Lessons in Chemistry” could have been tighter (trimmed to six episodes), and a subplot about Black neighbor Harriet (Aja Naomi King) fighting racial injustice could be more developed. Still, “Chemistry” comes up with a winning formula in the end.
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Though tonal shifts from comedy to calamity break its stride, this fierce, funny and vital series tackles a mid-century battle for women’s rights through the eyes of a chemist—an Emmy-bound Brie Larson—who uses a local TV cooking show to lead a feminist charge.
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Subtle, it’s not. But it is entertaining, thanks to some outstanding performances, particularly from Larson.
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An enjoyable, gorgeously designed, but somewhat flat miniseries that takes on acute sexism in midcentury America.
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There is very little that's intentionally funny about "Lessons in Chemistry," although some of the dialogue is amusingly insipid. The Oscar-winning Ms. Larson nevertheless makes it a very watchable series, as does the gifted Lewis Pullman as Elizabeth's lover and near-intellectual equal Calvin Evans.
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When it jumps back to focusing on Elizabeth’s life as a woman trying to plant her feet in the soil of a world that seems too small for her, Lessons in Chemistry strives to hold on to its initial greatness, though it doesn’t completely stick the landing.
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While the love story and the cooking scenes are delightful to watch, the rest of Lessons in Chemistry droops. Bonnie Garmus wrote her novel so cinematically that, when actually adapted, there’s no room for creative liberty.
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Though the series might seem like a formulaic underdog tale, it’s not afraid to scramble that formula up, from a shocking character death to a voiceover from the perspective of a labradoodle. That said, not all of the risks pay off.
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For a show all about conducting experiments, Lessons In Chemistry sticks pretty closely to a conventional TV formula — but Brie Larson's strong lead performance and the wonderfully realised time period make it worth your while.
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In squeezing all of Elizabeth’s life into eight hourlong episodes, “Lessons in Chemistry” sometimes shows the strain of adaptation. .... Their [Larson and Pullman's] scenes of two kindred spirits resonating on a particular, personal frequency make you want to see more of them both — or in Larson’s case, more of this side of her.
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Lessons in Chemistry is a wholly enjoyable watch, just as the book was a wholly enjoyable read (apart from the dog). But, like the book, it still carries with it the sense of an opportunity wasted. We have seen this kind of condemnation of the 50s, of its sexism and racism many times before.
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Alas: this eight-part adaptation of Lessons in Chemistry (Apple TV+) messes with Garmus’s winning formula. Lee Eisenberg’s glossy adaptation is still an enjoyable watch, with its detailed Mad Men-esque period styling (and attitudes) and mouthwatering food preparation.
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Will Lessons in Chemistry knock your socks off? It very well could, but there's a higher likelihood that it'll be a nice watch, something that delivers wit and charm while you make your way through all the episodes – but that's ultimately slightly forgettable.
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It’s fine. The score never gets in the way, the performances are compelling, and the story doesn’t veer too saccharine, though it sometimes skirts that line. It’s a beach watch, maybe.
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But for all its watchability, Lessons in Chemistry never totally gels. There's wit bubbling around the edges, but it hesitates to be too funny for fear of reducing its heavier themes. As a result, the show feels like a less deft rendering of Garmus' sensibility, which avoided hammy overreach at every turn.
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For a show about a woman who trusted her viewers, this one often doesn’t give its watchers the same treatment, spelling out what we already know is in the formula.
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While the series finds its own rhythm, it’s not the one you’re expecting. It’s a lesson – but from a class you didn’t consider taking.
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As pleasing as it is to watch, you can’t help but question the judgment of a show that could have given more screen time to King’s Harriet but instead cedes it to a dog with the voice of Ryan from The Office.
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Your enjoyment of Apple’s sometimes charming but more often didactic, weirdly unfocused adaptation, premiering Oct. 13, is likely to vary depending on whether you find stories about plucky underdogs triumphing over adversity inspiring or exhausting.
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Brie Larson takes center stage in this adaptation of Bonnie Garmus’ novel, but its depiction of a female scientist turned cooking-show host navigating the patriarchal 1950s yields a souffle that sounds tasty but never rises.
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It just struggles to fit its saccharine love story alongside a ’50s feminist fantasy, a porous character study, and a peripheral civil rights C-plot.