Succession

Succession shares a lot of the corporate hard-ball sensibilities of Showtime's Billions, as well as its uncanny ability to make a thoroughly dislikeable set of perfidious and bloodthirsty characters completely entrancing.

After six episodes, Succession stops feeling like chunks of it are working and starts churning out more and more addictive content. ... So rather than wish for something to be cut down and fit into an old box, delight in watching this witty drama or black comedy grow into something new.

Succession is elevated by Cox’s turn.

Succession is a funny, incisive portrait of the dynamics within a well-off family, but it’s also a cautionary tale about how dicey and unethical it is to employ too many relatives.

Armstrong finds a way to keep the Roys from being awful to the point of being unwatchable. Quite the opposite, once you get into the series.

[Logan's] rude tenacity proves to be his only quality as the season shapes up. The dynamics of the internecine struggle--the squabbles, betrayals, and ad-hoc alliances--are primal in a way that would translate to any ancient clan or provincial enterprise. But the persuasive texture of this portrait of extreme wealth is distinctly contemporary.

[Succession] is sharply written and expertly played. The characters are individual enough to feel original, however much they may adhere to type, and Armstrong's dialogue, layered and overlapping at times in the manner of Robert Altman, nicely models the way people talk around things, the poker game that is human conversation.

Its writing is the making of Succession, a 10-part romp not without its flaws--the soap-opera element is strong--but one without a dull moment.

Given the complicated nature of the subject matter, Succession has navigated its launch in impressive fashion.

It’s off to a more interesting start than several recent HBO shows (I’m looking at you, “Here and Now”) and the pedigree of the cast and crew should keep the production engaging. We’ve always loved to watch the high and mighty fall in fiction, and seeing the Roys collapse under the weight of their own underhanded machinations should make for an unexpected summer diversion.

The joy of seeing them all plot against one another and lay traps and sometimes fall into them themselves often rivals the best machinations of Lannisters, Targaryens, or a Littlefinger. Most of the characters in Succession suffer from a litany of faults: arrogance, greed, ignorance, cowardice, selfishness, delusions of grandeur, but the show has a potent combination of virtues that makes up for these sins.

You won't wish yourself a part of this family, you may not emotionally invest in their internal conflicts, and you certainly won't root for anybody, but there's ample entertainment in watching these thin-blooded titans self-destruct.

The new HBO drama had the potential to collapse under the weight of its negativity, and that could still happen in subsequent seasons. But the first seven-episode round is solid, and occasionally soars, behind the strong direction and writing.

Succession doesn’t have a tonal problem, necessarily--the comedy and drama mostly complement each other—but rather a fundamental challenge: making some really shitty people the kind you’d want to visit with week after week. The series, then, is best appreciated not as a glimpse into the lives of media moguls and unsavory billionaires, but as a high-stakes family drama, one whose fights, backstabs, and reconciliations have the potential to ripple throughout the world.

Succession, HBO's new drama series with a comedy pedigree, is a combination boardroom and family drama spiked with acidic humor that will make you grateful for your own dysfunctional family. You all may be broke and screwed up, but that's better than being a Roy.

For the first half of its 10 episodes, Succession struggles to fill space, relying on imaginatively filthy dialogue and increasingly absurd scenarios to pad out the minimal action and character development. Midway through the season, though, the show finds its dramatic footing. It’s a test in patience, but a rewarding one.

The tone of the pilot makes jarring shifts, but episode two settles into a comfortably arch take on the hubris and egocentrism shared by members of the Roy clan.

Succession, indeed, is at its best, and its most purely enjoyable, when it pushes past the temptation to be fun alone.

Any discomfort we feel about enjoying the show means Succession has succeeded, stoking a needling internal (and now external) conversation about the masses’ ideological relationship to the oligarchs pulling levers above our heads. If that is indeed what the show is trying to do, a begrudging hats off to Succession.

Very watchable but totally missable: not urgent, not escapist, and not even the best premium cable show about hugely entertaining rich people. ... But the show is not quite scathing or indicting enough to bring a sense of urgency to its study of the super-rich.

In comparison to [FX's Trust], “Succession” doesn’t hold up. It doesn’t have the same production values or theatricality. This is “Dynasty” without the costumes, “Arrested Development” without the overt comedy.

The balance shifts away from satire and toward drama as the season progresses. ... It’s an uneasy combination, and while the two sides of the show’s split personality are executed well--the creator is Jesse Armstrong, who worked on the great British comedy “The Thick of It”--they don’t amplify or enrich each other in the way that was presumably intended. You can sense both sides being reined in, especially the satire, which can’t go for broke in this context.

A slick but often hollow vehicle. [28 May - 10 Jun 2018, p.17]

Succession makes it clear that the Roys are not especially nice people. They are also, alas, not especially fascinating. Pink slips for everyone.

At first engaging, then slowly, inexorably, Succession turns into work.

The actors all got different memos. ... Succession is some kind of success, if the point is to prove the Murdochs are boring as hell. [1/8 Jun 2018, p.78]

Underwhelming in both execution and intent. ... Its occasional attempts at wryness result in a choking dryness, with the only levity coming from the arrival of a green and gullible cousin, Greg (Nicholas Braun), who attempts to ingratiate his way into this inner circle of snakes. The overall tone of cruelty is difficult to overcome.