New Amsterdam
FOX | Release Date: March 4, 2008
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
7
Negative:
2
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin
Season 1 Review: This tale of a lonely cop left behind by everyone--partners, friends, lovers, even the criminals he pursues--has a piercing melancholy that elevates it way above its fantasy trappings. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalNancy DeWolf Smith
Season 1 Review: The underlying theme here, once the fantastic elements are stripped away, is loneliness. That (plus the interesting face of its star) gives New Amsterdam a true and very tender heart. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)John Leonard
Season 1 Review: The resulting series features trick photography, murder, romance, and--much like the Fox "Terminator" series--more clever ideas and witty jokes, not to mention cool jazz, than the audience expects or deserves. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesMisha Davenport
Season 1 Review: New Amsterdam is smart and far more original than most of the new series this season, which warrants it becoming a Monday habit. Read full review
75
New York PostLinda Stasi
Season 1 Review: Eight episodes or not, don't count this show dead before it's born. Read full review
75
USA TodayRobert Bianco
Season 1 Review: This relatively entertaining fantasy has one obvious viewership advantage over many of its strike-bound scripted competitors: new episodes, and not bad ones at that. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterRay Richmond
Season 1 Review: The premiere teleplay from Christian Taylor does a capable, if slightly workmanlike, job of setting the stage for what's to follow, while Coster-Waldau paints a beguiling portrait of a brooding, conflicted, undeniably charismatic soul. Read full review
70
San Jose Mercury News/Contra Costa TimesCharlie McCollum
Season 1 Review: New Amsterdam is worth keeping an eye on as it develops. It could become consistently engaging television. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineMatt Roush
Season 1 Review: The procedural stuff is mostly drab, but John's institutional memories of the Big Apple (dating back to when it was still a big jungle) make New Amsterdam more intriguing than it initially appears. Read full review
70
Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert
Season 1 Review: Coster-Waldau makes John so alien and distant as to be annoyingly inscrutable. But in Thursday's episode, we begin to learn more particulars about John's history, and how he maintains his secret. And that's when Coster-Waldau becomes more vivid and the show begins to rise above its silly murder-of-the-week plots Read full review
70
The New York TimesGinia Bellafante
Season 1 Review: The filmmaker Lasse Hallstrom has directed the pilot with cool, almost metallic tones, as if trying to conceal the show’s distorted bedrock sentimentality. He can’t. Read full review
70
Washington PostJohn Maynard
Season 1 Review: This new drama has bad dialogue to spare, too, which mars an otherwise distinctive, better-than-average police show. Read full review
70
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray
Season 1 Review: New Amsterdam's pilot, directed by Lasse Hallstrom, who's also one of the show's executive producers, is as well-executed as any I've seen this season. Read full review
70
Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm
Season 1 Review: [New Amsterdam's premise] is not the greatest thing since the invention of the tin can, which came along right in the middle of our hero's life, but it turns out to be much less stupid than it sounds. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyMarc Bernardin
Season 1 Review: The debuting metaphysical cop drama comes on like a randy high schooler, dumping too much backstory too fast. [7 Mar 2008, p.88]
63
New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley
Season 1 Review: What we have in a sense, then, is another boy-girl dance playing off against the tension of lethal crime in New York. But the premise is novel enough that maybe John won't be just tilting at windmills. Read full review
60
NewsdayDiane Werts
Season 1 Review: This Fox series is smartly written and acted, and it's even evocatively filmed in New York locations that lend it a gritty city flavor. But.... Less persuasively entwined is a heavy-handed romance whodunit. Read full review
60
Orlando SentinelHal Boedeker
Season 1 Review: The 1642 scenes look downright silly. There are a lot of flashes of humor, too, and they help spice up this loopy premise. Read full review
60
PopMattersCynthia Fuchs
Season 1 Review: The shaman contrivance is surely tedious, but it appears that New Amsterdam uses the immortal design not as a way to Forrest-Gump its protagonist into a set of trite historical situations, but more cleverly, to ask questions about those situations. Read full review
50
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen
Season 1 Review: In Tuesday's pilot, New Amsterdam reveals itself as a pedestrian cop show with a vampire-like lead character Read full review
50
VarietyBrian Lowry
Season 1 Review: Easy to dismiss at first glance, the series does exhibit some possibilities in its second episode, though it's still a relatively uninspired time-killer for those of us with just one life to live. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMary McNamara
Season 1 Review: Such a concept seem ripe with delicious possibility. The show, unfortunately, is not. Played out as a cop procedural, it has a predictable narrative structure that at times resembles nothing so much as a prison. Read full review
40
Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall
Season 1 Review: New Amsterdam is essentially three shows in one: Amsterdam flashing back on all the exciting things he's done in the last 366 years; Amsterdam trying to find The One, and Amsterdam and partner Eva Marquez (Zuleikha Robinson) solving murders like the leads on some kind of supernaturally-charged "Law & Order" spin- off. But only the first of those shows is remotely interesting. Read full review
30
Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan
Season 1 Review: The whole enterprise is very shoddy and predictable, and I can’t imagine that anyone involved did this for anything but a paycheck. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman
Season 1 Review: New Amsterdam is very average--and in many aspects is well below average. It never feels like much more than a cliche. Read full review
Current TV Shows
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 92 The Pitt: Season 2
2 90 The Celebrity Traitors UK: Season 1
3 87 Hacks: Season 5
4 87 Industry: Season 4
5 87 Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal:...
6 85 The Beatles Anthology
7 85 The Traitors [UK]: Season 4
8 85 Bait: Season 1
9 84 Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!
10 83 Lord of the Flies
11 83 Riot Women: Season 1
12 83 For All Mankind: Season 5
13 81 The Muppet Show (2026)
14 80 Outlander (2014): Season 8
15 80 The Other Bennet Sister: Season 1
16 80 The Mighty Nein: Season 1
17 80 The Comeback: Season 3
18 80 The American Revolution
19 80 One Piece (2023): Season 2
20 80 Dark Winds: Season 4
SEE ALL