|
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
41
Mixed:
13
Negative:
3
|
Watch Now
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
Critic Reviews
Jun 28, 2013
Season 1 Review:
[A] superbly tawdry new crime series. [8 Jul 2013, p.35]
Jun 28, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Ray Donovan is fun, but it’s also heart-breakingly sad and deadly serious, sometimes all at once. In all cases, this is one of the smartest series to come around in a while, sharply written (by creator and executive producer Ann Biderman) with a perfect balance of comedy and tragedy, action and reflection.
Read full review
Jul 6, 2015
Season 3 Review:
Uncompromising and funny stuff so far. [10/17 Jul 2015, p.102]
Jun 28, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Voight is perfectly cast as the one person who can plausibly terrify Ray, and he and Schreiber have a crackling chemistry. The supporting players are terrific, too, starting with Paula Malcomson as Ray's wife, Abby.... But it's Schreiber, who manages to convey a lot while seemingly remaining impassive much of the time, who somehow holds Ray Donovan together.
Read full review
Jun 26, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Buoyed by a riveting supporting performance from Jon Voight, it’s a dense, highly organic world--at its best, playing like a present-day “Chinatown.” More often, it’s eminently entertaining, if not initially quite worthy of a spot alongside TV’s velvet-roped A-list.
Read full review
Jul 31, 2017
Season 5 Review:
The most intriguing plotline centers around a secretive movie exec named Samantha Winslow (Susan Sarandon, in a delightful strange turn). What does she want from Ray? The suspense is enough to pull us back in. [4 Aug 2017, p.56]
Jul 10, 2014
Season 2 Review:
While the series possesses enough pleasures, guilty or otherwise, to warrant a secure place in the DVR queue, it still feels like a program that is finding its way--seeking a balance between the seedy underbelly of L.A. glamor and the most dysfunctional of family dramas, connected by a fixer who’s mostly a downer.
Read full review
Jul 1, 2013
Season 1 Review:
The show is more successful when the Donovans are interacting with rich or otherwise spoiled people than when they’re dealing with their own problems, because the problems, however sympathetically written and acted, are a potluck stew of elements you’ve seen in other stories about South Boston Irish-Americans.
Read full review
Jul 2, 2014
Season 2 Review:
In trying to balance Elmore Leonard-styled grime, cultural satire, and family-focused subplots, Ray Donovan remains a well-crafted series that, like its title character, suffers from an identity crisis. [11 Jul 2014, p.65]
ColliderJun 23, 2016
Jul 8, 2015
Season 3 Review:
As usual, Ray’s ex-con dad Mickey (Jon Voight) steals much of the show.... Because Schreiber’s character is so brooding and emotionally clenched, though, the series heavily relies on its supporting players and guest stars, which is where the opening salvo feels relatively malnourished.
Read full review
Jul 11, 2014
Season 2 Review:
Ray Donovan, meanwhile, continues to find its way. The show about a Hollywood fixer has added a number of guest stars, including Hank Azaria, Sherilyn Fenn and Wendell Pierce, none of whom has yet made me care as much about the dysfunctional relationship between Ray (Liev Schreiber) and his father (Jon Voight) as about whatever's going on between Ray and his wife, Abby (Paula Malcomson).
Read full review
Jun 27, 2013
Season 1 Review:
But after five episodes, Ray Donovan is still some good performances in search of a show. It feels made up of pieces of other antihero dramas--a little Sopranos here, a little Brotherhood there, even a little Entourage around the edges. Ray is so far too much a cipher to be an engaging focal character, and his flaws and failings are those of so many middle-aged cable ass-kickers in the past decade.
Read full review
Jun 27, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Much of the show simply feels disjointed, or tired, or both. Despite intermittent flashes of liveliness, the pacing of Ray Donovan is off, especially at first, when it feels as though the show is trying to cover too much ground and cram in too much backstory about the Donovans' troubled past in Boston.
Read full review
Current TV Shows
By MetascoreBy User Score