The Alzheimer's Project

:

Season 1
  • Network: HBO
  • Series Premiere Date: May 10, 2009
Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 10 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 10
  3. Negative: 0 out of 10
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Critic Reviews

  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Mandi Bierly
    100
    The four-part docuseries begins with ''The Memory Loss Tapes,'' a moving look at the disease's progression through seven patients at various stages. It's not a question of if you'll cry, it's how soon.
  2. Newsday
    Reviewed by: Verne Gay
    100
    What's here is pitch-perfect - the fear, loss, emotional devastation and, peculiar to this disease, silence.
  3. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Mary McNamara
    80
    The Alzheimer’s Project is an ambitious, disturbing, emotionally fraught and carefully optimistic four-part documentary exploring virtually every angle of Alzheimer's disease that can be explored on television
  5. Salon
    Reviewed by: Heather Havrilesky
    80
    Thankfully, while the reckoning of "The Memory Loss Tapes" is probably necessary, the other documentaries in the series are a little more hopeful.
  6. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Alessandra Stanley
    70
    The zeal and dedication of researchers is inspiring, and so are the patients and caregivers who struggle with the disease everyday, but over all, The Alzheimer’s Project celebrates hope at the expense of caution.
  7. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Nancy DeWolf Smith
    70
    In many respects, HBO's The Alzheimer's Project is nearly identical to the Emmy-winning PBS Alzheimer's presentation, "The Forgetting," which was first broadcast in 2004 and updated last year.
  8. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Glenn Garvin
    70
    The Alzheimer's Project, a four-part series that began with two episodes focused on harrowing descriptions of the disease, concludes on a hopeful note with two more outlining research advances.
  9. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Randee Dawn
    60
    We like noble efforts. But we tend to like them better on television when they're accompanied by a sense of pacing and entertainment value. (If things were otherwise, PBS would rule the universe.) In this case, a few more spoonfuls of sugar might have helped this medicine go down.
  10. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: David Hinckley
    60
    The Alzheimer's Project is hard to watch. It's just not as hard as the disease it examines.
  11. Variety
    Reviewed by: Brian Lowry
    60
    It's perhaps inevitable that this project will range from sobering and moving to, at times, feeling a bit too much like homework.

Awards & Rankings

28
#28 Best TV Season of 2009
69
#69 Most Shared TV Season of 2009

User Reviews

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User Score
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User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. ErnieK
    May 12, 2009
    8
    An important series, but poorly assembled, I fear the opening hour caused many viewers to turn it off due to the hopelessness depicted. The An important series, but poorly assembled, I fear the opening hour caused many viewers to turn it off due to the hopelessness depicted. The producers needed to sprinkle bits of the hope from researchers throughout the grim introduction of the patients.… Full Review »