Critic Reviews
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The cast is exceptional, never carrying themselves as if they are above the often confused, petty, or weak characters they portray; Shawkat in particular is a revelation, at times channeling the doe-eyed distress of Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby. This is just a great show, refreshingly unafraid to twist the knife--a late-breaking candidate for best series of 2016.
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The production on Search Party is cinematic, with spot-on young-poor-people apartments and a score that sways—like the series itself--from light-hearted to menacing and back. The ultimate reveal, when it arrives, is extremely satisfying, even though it potentially upends everything that came before it.
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The season is peppered with great cameos and supporting players, but elevating and humanizing it all is a magnificent performance by Shawkat. She turns Dory into a funny, affecting, even profound cautionary tale about finding meaning in someone else’s life.
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It’s engaging, thoughtful television, and whether or not it can sustain its unique tone isn’t pertinent right now. What matters is the journey, and it’s been a charming, introspective and telling one so far.
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The draw here is watching how unraveling the mystery results in Dory finding herself and taking charge of her life. She just needed a little prompting.
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Uneven, intelligent, weird, sometimes funny (more often not)--and almost consistently engaging.
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There are twists and turns, but things never get confusing. Each episode ends with a small revelation that keeps Dory moving. Even minor characters get full arcs and smart backstories.
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The show works as a comedy, as a satire of the way certain people live now and of the true-crime genre in its search for Chantal. Search Party’s half-hour episodes zip by so quickly, you’ll probably binge on them sometime during the upcoming holiday.
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Everything that Dory & Co. experience in Search Party is instigated by its central mystery, but each is also wholly its own story. It almost feels New Wave-y in how the group flits from one experience to the next organically, only briefly having to confront the deeper truths before them.
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It's characters on the verge of stereotype in a genre piece that's on the verge of parody, but by the tenth episode I found myself invested in Chantal's disappearance and even if I didn't like all of the main characters, I found myself sneering at them in a way I think they'd respect.
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At one moment, the series seems set to satisfy expectations, the next to undercut them, and the next to undercut the undercutting. Its endgame twists may frustrate some viewers, but they are meaningful and not arbitrary.
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An unusual holiday trip. Fortunately for us, it’s one worth taking.
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It’s sometimes horrifying and sometimes silly, and at times, Search Party can get a tiny bit precious with its own cleverness. But when it works, it’s an astounding and engaging journey through genre conventions that should be at odds with each other.
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Bliss and Rogers have crafted something special. They blend humor and suspense almost flawlessly over ten marathon-ready episodes, and their cast carries the quirkier parts with aplomb. Search Party is smart, surprising, and builds to a mightily disturbing first season coda.
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While much of the show’s first season feel needlessly twisty and jerky, the way the mystery eventually comes together while allowing for sharp observations about the show’s characters speaks to Search Party being much more incisive--and worthy of a 10-hour marathon commitment--than it might appear at first glance.
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It's weird. It starts quite slowly. But it turns into something rather interesting and quite funny.
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It would be easy to overrate Search Party for its novelty, and the humor, while frequently sharp, is often of the sideways, trailing-off variety that won’t hit every viewer’s pleasure centers. But the cross-pollination of genres clicks just often enough.
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Search Party is kind of weirdly endearing, in a misanthropic, foul-mouthed sort of way. If you've ever wondered why all your friends are self-important sociopaths, Search Party may be the show you've been waiting for all your life.
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TBS is airing the entire 10-episode season in a weeklong binge, which means the choppy plotting is easy to overlook as long as the characters remain painfully funny to watch--which they do, right up to the horrifying final laugh.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 75 out of 89
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Mixed: 3 out of 89
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Negative: 11 out of 89
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Nov 23, 2016
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Nov 29, 2016
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Nov 24, 2016