- Network: AppleTV+
- Series Premiere Date: Oct 12, 2023
Critic Reviews
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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.