The Playboy Club
NBC | Release Date: September 19, 2011
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
45
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
13
Negative:
8

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Wall Street JournalDorothy RabinowitzSep 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: A sharply drawn and riveting one from the evidence on hand, and bolstered by a skilled cast. This club should lure plenty of customers, television-viewing variety. They'll have good reason. Read full review
75
NewsdayVerne GaySep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: A competently made soap with some good actors and nicely staged musical numbers. Read full review
70
Zap2it (Inside the Box)Andrea ReiherSep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: The Playboy Club is fun fare. The show could really take off if it chooses to not only be fun, but also explore the various frontiers the 1960s backdrop provides. Read full review
63
USA TodayRobert BiancoSep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: The series does have energy and narrative drive, some fun performances, and a glossy '60s eye-candy sheen. That may be enough to hold your attention while Playboy works on some of its problems. Read full review
63
San Jose Mercury News/Contra Costa TimesChuck BarneySep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: The Playboy Club isn't in the same league, or even the same galaxy, as the critically adored "Mad Men." While the latter offers nuance and depth and keen insights into its era, the former settles for stock characters, cliches and superficiality, punctuated by a lot of come-hither looks. Read full review
63
RedEyeCurt WagnerSep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: Some might say the show is overstuffed with stories, but I had no problem following the various strands, even if some were less interesting than others. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesLori RacklSep 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: The bottom line is this isn't a show you tune into for sophisticated narrative, innovative plot twists and complex characters. It's a sexy, soapy period drama that's as fluffy as the tails on its buxom stars' backsides. Read full review
60
Miami HeraldGlenn GarvinSep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: As a kind of CSI: Sleaze City, the show is quite watchable. Read full review
58
Boston HeraldMark A. PerigardSep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: NBC, together with Academy Award-winning producer Brian Grazer ("A Beautiful Mind"), tries to duplicate the success of AMC's "Mad Men" but cribs the wrong details with a woefully untalented cast, mixed feminist messages and a melodrama that is at times laugh-out-loud funny. Read full review
50
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob OwenSep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: If the show can rein in some of its more outrageous plot tendencies and focus on music and social issues, it could grow into a Club viewers will want to frequent. Read full review
50
The New York TimesMike HaleSep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: What we get is an unwieldy and mostly humdrum combination of mob tale and backstage musical. Read full review
50
HitfixAlan SepinwallSep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: Taylor does a strong job of showcasing the show's main set, a recreation of the original Club, and several of the musical numbers (sometimes the Bunnies get to sing, and other times the show casts actors to play '60s musicians like Ike & Tina Turner) really pop. But the show's attempts at social relevance ring hollow, and the main plot leans too heavily on the wooden Cibrian. Read full review
50
New York PostLinda StasiSep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: The acting isn't great, some of the hundreds of subplots aren't bad, but this ain't "Mad Men" and Cibrian and Heard are no Jon Hamm and January Jones despite their desperate attempt to be. Read full review
50
Uncle BarkyEd BarkSep 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: Subtract its clunky dialogue, ludicrous plot devices and empowerment nonsense, and you're left with its heightened sense of pulchritude. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMatthew GilbertSep 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: The Playboy Club plods forward with no ballast, hoping that the vibrant early '60s music and the miles of bunny cleavage will compensate for the lack of original plotting and characters. Read full review
50
VarietyBrian LowrySep 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: Given the emphasis on soapy doings and shiny exteriors, the serial threatens to short-change its most interesting attributes, glancingly commenting on issues pertaining to sociology and the sexual revolution (such as a Bunny marveling, "I make more money than my father") while lacking the latitude to truly probe them. Read full review
42
Washington PostHank StueverSep 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: An ambitious but ultimately weak attempt to set an ensemble drama inside Hugh Hefner's hallowed, smoke-filled nightclub of early 1960s Chicago. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterTim GoodmanSep 20, 2011
Season 1 Review: The whole thing quickly becomes hokey and a grind. Blame goes consistently to the writing. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMatt RoushSep 20, 2011
Season 1 Review: An insipid and unconvincing attempt to position bunnies at the forefront of a social and sexual revolution. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsDavid HinckleySep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: The sobering truth is that sometimes when you mix too many colors, you don't get a brighter rainbow. You get dark gray. Or, in this case, a supersize soap opera. Read full review
30
The New YorkerNancy FranklinSep 26, 2011
Season 1 Review: I said that The Playboy Club might be promising. Guess what? I lied. Read full review
30
SalonMatt Zoller SeitzSep 20, 2011
Season 1 Review: They want to be both fun and edifying and end up being neither, and style-wise, they feel too much like Wikipedia entries with actors. The series might have managed to overcome these problems (partly, at least) if it had a a strong point-of-view, however conflicted, toward what it's showing us. But it doesn't. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesMary McNamaraSep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: The Playboy Club is nothing but a tarted-up mob drama; the bunnies may be used as the marketing and milieu but the main narrative is about the men, and no one seems aware of the irony. Read full review
30
PopMattersRenee Scolaro MoraSep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: While options during the era were surely limited, the show's broad strokes don't do justice to the choices women were making, or their self-awareness while making them. Read full review
25
People WeeklyTom GliattoSep 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: Playboy Club makes the mistake of aping Mad Men's Stern social seriousness. [26 Sep 2011, p.54]
25
San Francisco ChronicleDavid WiegandSep 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: Unless the writing of the show improves exponentially, it may not be around long enough for us to remember the characters' first names, much less learn their last. Read full review
10
SlateTroy PattersonSep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: For viewers looking for a solid hour long drama, it is one more thing not to watch. Read full review
0
TimeJames PoniewozikSep 19, 2011
Season 1 Review: What was one of the worst drama pilots of the fall is now one of the worst for slightly, superficially different reasons. Read full review
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