- Network: Apple TV+
- Series Premiere Date: May 13, 2022
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Critic Reviews
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We’re tentatively giving The Essex Serpent a recommendation because the performances of Danes, Hiddleston and the rest of the cast can overcome the series’ plodding pacing in parts. But we’re just not sure how many people are going to make it through all six episodes when it seems like the first one doesn’t do much to set up the story.
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The performances fade into the background, as the background comes to the foreground. The real star of the show is the murky estuary, where the fog rolls in and the treacherous waters are cloaked in bad omens and superstition. ... It’s a shame, therefore, that against this beautiful backdrop, the human drama never crackles.
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Danes grounds and gives a remarkable truth to the whole. But even allowing for the fact that screen adaptations rarely capture the full filigree of a literary novelist’s work (one reason why uncomplicated genre fiction generally fares better – there is more to add, less to lose), it feels like slightly too much has been lost in translation here.
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Despite the intriguing setup, the sharp direction and the earnest performances, “The Essex Serpent” is a six-episode slog through dramatically murky and not particularly deep waters. It spends too much time bogged down in various melodramatic romantic entanglements.
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Meandering, ponderous and lacking tension, "The Essex Serpent" is in desperate need of more bite.
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Director Clio Barnard (The Selfish Giant) has always been stronger on atmosphere than plot. She and writer, Anna Symon, have produced something flat, in which moments of high drama or strong emotion seem overdone.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 1 out of 7
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Mixed: 1 out of 7
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Negative: 5 out of 7
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May 14, 2022As flat and dull as the landscape it is set in. Acting is also ridiculously bad.
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May 13, 2022a very slow and ordinary production with bad performances, Claire is the only good thing about the show