- Network: NBC
- Series Premiere Date: Sep 19, 2011
Critic Reviews
- Critic score
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As a kind of CSI: Sleaze City, the show is quite watchable.
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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.
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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.
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What we get is an unwieldy and mostly humdrum combination of mob tale and backstage musical.
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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.
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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.
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Subtract its clunky dialogue, ludicrous plot devices and empowerment nonsense, and you're left with its heightened sense of pulchritude.
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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.
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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.
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An ambitious but ultimately weak attempt to set an ensemble drama inside Hugh Hefner's hallowed, smoke-filled nightclub of early 1960s Chicago.
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The whole thing quickly becomes hokey and a grind. Blame goes consistently to the writing.
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An insipid and unconvincing attempt to position bunnies at the forefront of a social and sexual revolution.
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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.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 20 out of 33
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Mixed: 7 out of 33
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Negative: 6 out of 33
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Dec 30, 2011
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Sep 24, 2011
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Nov 5, 2011