Shark
CBS | Release Date: September 21, 2006
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
15
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Seattle Post-IntelligencerMelanie McFarland
Season 1 Review: If you don't like Woods' frantic, frequent speeches, and you can't get out of the "Without a Trace" Thursday habit, best to steer clear. Read full review
60
Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall
Season 1 Review: If the "Shark" writers feel the need to, in the very first episode, soften their hero in a way the "House" writers haven't had to do in two-plus seasons, how warm and fuzzy will the character be by November sweeps, let alone the end of the season? Read full review
60
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray
Season 1 Review: If you watch "Shark," it's going to be for those Woods-ian rants and for the sheer exuberance he brings to them. Read full review
60
Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm
Season 1 Review: Subtract James Woods from Shark, and you'd have an empty carcass. Instead, you have a carcass with James Woods and all his crazy energy inside. Read full review
60
Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert
Season 1 Review: "Shark" is a very conventional courtroom TV drama about a do-good lawyer, and its only distinction is the ferocious acting of Woods. Read full review
60
SlateTroy Patterson
Season 1 Review: The show works only because Woods is a honey-baked ham playing a character who lives to be a showman. Read full review
60
The New YorkerTad Friend
Season 1 Review: The lapping tide of gooeyness would be more tolerable if Stark’s empathy made him lose a big case, and if that loss got messy. “Shark,” though, wants to have it both ways: he keeps winning, but now for the right reasons. Read full review
50
VarietyBrian Lowry
Season 1 Review: Woods is such a compelling presence that he might be able to elevate even procedural fare. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman
Season 1 Review: This is a paint-by-numbers legal series that's as predictable as they come. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyGillian Flynn
Season 1 Review: Of course, it's near impossible to break new ground in legal dramas at this point. But Shark doesn't even try to hide its weariness. Read full review
40
Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan
Season 1 Review: The level of the writing and the bland supporting cast do not match Woods’ wit, intelligence and slightly scary ferocity. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterBarry Garron
Season 1 Review: It's an attractive premise but a pedestrian execution. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesRobert Lloyd
Season 1 Review: The episode galumphs loudly across a checkerboard of scenes -- Stark at work, Stark at home, Stark at work at home -- that achieve neither the convincing quality of detailed realism nor the dumb fun of untethered melodrama. Read full review
40
TimeJames Poniewozik
Season 1 Review: The problem is, where Hugh Laurie's Gregory House is a hilarious character study, Stark--while played with ebullient aggression by Woods--is just another tool in a suit, and neither the characters, the stories nor the writing rise near House's level. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalDorothy Rabinowitz
Season 1 Review: "Shark" suffers from a variety of flaws too numerous to detail here, not least its sentimentality, its wooden characters, its tin-eared dialogue. Read full review
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