The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
HBO | BBC | Release Date: March 15, 2009
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
71
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
4
Negative:
2

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
USA TodayRobert Bianco
Season 1 Review: This is as good an adaptation as any Ladies lover could wish, one that overflows with the joys of life and exudes an all-embracing spirit. Be ready to be beguiled. Read full review
90
Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm
Season 1 Review: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, whose pilot is the first feature-length film made in Botswana--a movie that starts off one of the most glowingly original, kindhearted, and genuinely engaging TV series of this fading decade. Read full review
90
Orlando SentinelHal Boedeker
Season 1 Review: Detective series generally are not known for charm or sunniness. But The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency revels in both qualities, with often exhilarating results. Read full review
83
NewsdayVerne Gay
Season 1 Review: This is a gentle, good-hearted series and Scott was pretty much born to play Precious. But LDA can also be willfully, stubbornly languid. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesMary McNamara
Season 1 Review: Scenes unspool, lives unwind, wicked acts are done, but so is justice, and under the lovely and indifferent African sun, it seems there is all the time in the world. It's hard to imagine a better place to be. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley
Season 1 Review: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency takes some time setting itself up Sunday night, but those who stay with it will be rewarded with the funniest and most charming lady detective series since "Murder, She Wrote." Read full review
80
SalonHeather Havrilesky
Season 1 Review: As charismatic and unfamiliar as Ramotswe is, after the first hour, it's hard to imagine becoming addicted to this series the way so many readers are addicted to McCall Smith's novels. But then, by the beginning of the second episode, we start to understand: This series is a dramedy, really, a more exotic, more absurd, more original version of "Grey's Anatomy," if you will. Read full review
80
Washington PostTom Shales
Season 1 Review: A new limited-run series from HBO that is engaging, charming and intoxicating entirely on its own. Read full review
80
Kansas City StarAaron Barnhart
Season 1 Review: In the end, I had to give in to sheer enjoyment. My wife and I couldn’t load the next episode into the DVD player fast enough. Read full review
80
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen
Season 1 Review: If you have the patience and good humor to let the back stories and mysteries unfold in the 109 minutes of the first episode, you'll enjoy spending time with Mma Ramotswe and getting to know the landscape of her beloved Botswana, a peaceful nation in southern Africa. Read full review
80
TimeJames Poniewozik
Season 1 Review: All this has the potential to be a little corny, but Ladies' is that rare show that manages to be uncynical without being cloying. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily Nussbaum
Season 1 Review: This is unusual fare for HBO, sunny and serene and easy to dismiss. But I think it will find an enthusiastic audience for its benign vision of the detective as feminine healer, grounded in the show’s lovely lead performance by singer Jill Scott as Precious. Read full review
80
Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall
Season 1 Review: Rarely have I smiled as early and as often at a new series as I have at this one, which manage to be gentle and sweet and lighter-than-air without ever departing from the Earth that we know. Read full review
80
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray
Season 1 Review: Cozy at times as any English village mystery, Smith's stories, like the snakes he often includes, have a way of striking when one least expects. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalNancy DeWolf Smith
Season 1 Review: Magnificent cinematography, abundant animal life and lovely music that may contain harmonies unique to Botswana--all these make The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency a distinctly foreign affair. In the end, though, what comes through most strongly is not what's different, but how easily we recognize it all. Read full review
80
The New York TimesGinia Bellafante
Season 1 Review: There is a slow-growth, artisanal quality to the franchise, and the series, which stars an excellent Jill Scott as Precious, remains true to it. Anyone impatient with languorous pacing on television is at orange-alert risk of feeling fidgety. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyKen Tucker
Season 1 Review: Minghella's direction sets the tone for the series, placing Scott's boldly colored dresses against warm green walls and sand-brown buildings. Scott provides big love, but "Big Love" this ain't. Read full review
75
New York PostLinda Stasi
Season 1 Review: The charming, fun series of books has become a charming, fun TV series (seven episodes in all) on HBO, starring Grammy-winner Jill Scott as the books' No. 1 protagonist/heroine, Precious Ramotswe Read full review
70
VarietyBrian Lowry
Season 1 Review: A series that departs from past pay TV heavyweights in possessing no more heft than a pleasant breeze. Then again, amid all the tumult in today's busy and bustling dramas, that may be just the sort of soothing balm that could make both HBO and an acceptable swatch of its viewers happy. Read full review
70
Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert
Season 1 Review: I can't say you'll want to follow The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency religiously, like so many other HBO efforts, but it is an easy-to-like distraction. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesMary Houlihan
Season 1 Review: It overflows with a distinctive feel-good vibe. It looks and acts more like a PBS series than something new on HBO. Read full review
50
PopMattersCynthia Fuchs
Season 1 Review: The series doesn’t mean to dig deeply into contemporary African social problems or politics, instead, it offers up middlebrow mysteries that can be solved in an episode’s time, a heroine who is keenly observant and positively feminine, a vague sort of half-step forward from Nancy Drew or Jessica Fletcher. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan
Season 1 Review: What comes across as charmingly spare on the page frequently ends up lacking complexity on the screen. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman
Season 1 Review: Ultimately, everybody's affable in this series. There are no sharp right angles, no emotional elbows. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterAndrew Wallenstein
Season 1 Review: While the premise begs a broader comedic treatment, the series is a leisurely paced drama with light jokes that mostly play on its characters' convoluted rendering of the English language. Read full review
30
SlateTroy Patterson
Season 1 Review: This doesn't feel mindless, just unmindful, and the best way to honor its late creators is to look away from it. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineRyan Stewart
Season 1 Review: The pilot, while offering ample opportunity for the director to indulge in painting the grand, international tableaus that characterized his operatic feature epics, also exposes his tendency toward easy retreat into no-impact treacle when confronted with a culture not easily penetrated, even by an enthusiastic tourist. Read full review
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