Parade's End
HBO | Release Date: August 24, 2012
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Wall Street JournalDorothy RabinowitzFeb 22, 2013
Season 1 Review: Moment after moment the drama deepens, the rich complexity of Ford's characters make themselves felt in all their strangeness and variety. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleDavid WiegandFeb 20, 2013
Season 1 Review: Parade's End is a television masterpiece. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklySara VilkomersonFeb 22, 2013
Season 1 Review: You'll be pining for more once it's over. [1 Mar 2013, p.62]
90
Boston GlobeMatthew GilbertFeb 26, 2013
Season 1 Review: The unfolding of the Parade’s End narrative has been directed (by Susanna White) and written to challenge--sometimes too much so. While you always understand the connections among the characters on “Downton,” you have to piece them together yourself in Parade’s End.... It’s the kind of demanding storytelling that differentiates “The Wire” from most other crime series. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesMary McNamaraFeb 26, 2013
Season 1 Review: Parade's End must be taken on its own terms, because it is offering something rare and provocative: a poetically precise consideration of what it means to be caught out of time, clinging to the lip of one era or reaching desperately for a foothold in the other. Read full review
83
The Detroit NewsTom LongFeb 22, 2013
Season 1 Review: The disconnect between propriety and reality keeps the miniseries on constant edge. The entire cast is fine, but Hall steals the show. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsDavid HinckleyFeb 26, 2013
Season 1 Review: HBO’S new miniseries Parade’s End won’t stop the “Downton Abbey” DTs. But it can soothe the pain with wonderful visuals and superb performances by Benedict Cumberbatch, Rebecca Hall and Adelaide Clemens. Read full review
80
Denver PostJoanne OstrowFeb 22, 2013
Season 1 Review: The direction by Susanna White is subtle, except for a too-frequent visual pun of kaleidoscopic, prism-like refractions to help us see that the world at the moment of Parade’s End is splintering into pieces. Cumberbatch pulls off the stoic-to-shell-shocked expressions of Tietjens, Hall is masterful in a demanding role and Clemens is suited to playing the fresh young thing. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchGail PenningtonFeb 26, 2013
Season 1 Review: Parade's End is often sad and even grim, full of complicated personalities who are more fascinating than likable. But the miniseries is engrossing in its portrait of two people stuck in roles they need to cast aside, but somehow unable to make the break. Read full review
70
PopMattersRoss LangagerFeb 26, 2013
Season 1 Review: Despite character-based faults and multiple narrative cul-de-sacs, [Parade’s End] does come around to revealing the consequences of maintaining public status and reputation at the cost of personal realization. Read full review
70
The New York TimesAlessandra StanleyFeb 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: The series is not easy to follow or instantly love, but it is impossible to dismiss. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTim GoodmanFeb 22, 2013
Season 1 Review: Stoppard's storytelling structure has an odd rhythm to it, and White's direction can be both majestically beautiful and transitionally jarring. But combined, their choices allow Parade's End to achieve an exquisiteness, a sense of high art. Read full review
60
The Huffington PostMaureen RyanFeb 26, 2013
Season 1 Review: While Hall (who plays Tietjens' wife, Sylvia) and Cumberbatch do a fine job of portraying two mismatched people who are nevertheless stuck with each other for a bunch of social, cultural and personal reasons--some of which even they don't understand--Parade's End is often at war with itself. Read full review
60
TimeJames PoniewozikFeb 26, 2013
Season 1 Review: Sometimes unwieldy, sometimes beautiful, Parade’s End is--like the turbulent new order it ushers in--a bit of a mess, with no easily identifiable good guys. This miniseries doesn’t tell you how to feel, and it’s not exactly bursting with charming, loveable characters. But there’s a poignance to its story of people realizing their orderly parade is breaking up all around them. Read full review
58
Uncle BarkyEd BarkFeb 26, 2013
Season 1 Review: Although affecting at times, Parade's End tends to congeal rather than gel. Read full review
50
RedEyeCurt WagnerFeb 26, 2013
Season 1 Review: Despite fine acting from Cumberbatch and especially Hall and rare moments of comic relief, this adaptation of Ford Madox Ford's novels feels heavy and suffocating. Read full review
50
USA TodayRobert BiancoFeb 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: Beyond doubt, great talents and noble ambitions are at play here, but somewhere in the process, those talents seem to have confused "good" with "dull" and "serious" with "tedious. Read full review
50
Washington PostHank StueverFeb 25, 2013
Season 1 Review: Snail-paced and difficult to relate to, Parade’s End feels twice as long as its total running time. And yet it’s an exquisite and thoughtful sort of slog, with sound British pedigree and bone structure. Read full review
50
VarietyBrian LowryFeb 20, 2013
Season 1 Review: Ultimately, though, the story boils down to its central love triangle, with the sides stretching out a little too long as viewers wait for Tietjens to return home and choose whether to pursue happiness and risk public humiliation, or remain in his shattered and unhappy marriage. Read full review
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