The Player
NBC | Release Date: September 24, 2015
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
43
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
11
Negative:
12
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Newark Star-LedgerVicki HymanSep 24, 2015
Season 1 Review: The Player has the feel of one of those high-octane action thrillers that Hollywood pumps out--you get caught up in the moment, but the intricacies of the plot dissolve the second you step out of the theater. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesMary McNamaraSep 24, 2015
Season 1 Review: It's an efficient if mass-produced engine--every week a different race against crime and time--made a bit more interesting by the most dangerous game gone digital.... But it's the chemistry between Cassandra and Kane that ignites The Player. Read full review
70
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoSep 21, 2015
Season 1 Review: The Player is fun, and doesn’t really try to be anything more than that. Read full review
60
Los Angeles Daily NewsRob LowmanSep 18, 2015
Season 1 Review: It's hard to see where this all might be going. A nebulous nefarious cabal betting on the outcome of crimes may be the strangest of some of the strange premises for shows this fall, but Winchester is good at being the action hero. If you enjoy that, you might enjoy the show. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubJoshua AlstonSep 24, 2015
Season 1 Review: Because The Player is wandering into such well-explored territory, it feels limp at its liveliest. Read full review
58
HitfixAlan SepinwallSep 24, 2015
Season 1 Review: "The Player" has the potential to be enjoyable even if the premise seems like a high-risk, low-reward gamble. Read full review
58
Uncle BarkyEd BarkSep 23, 2015
Season 1 Review: Winchester is a solid enough presence as Kane.... Although this isn’t a flat-out terrible series, don’t bet on NBC having a winner opposite fearsome time slot competition from CBS’ Thursday Night Football and ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder. No one likes those odds. Read full review
58
NewsdayDiane WertsSep 23, 2015
Season 1 Review: Sure, Thursday's pilot is junk, but it's pretty, diligent junk, essentially The Whopper of action TV, heaped high with mayhem condiments. Read full review
50
Yahoo TVKen TuckerOct 22, 2015
Season 1 Review: For its combination of silliness revved up to a furious pace, The Player is, as I said at the start, watchable--the kind of visual junk food that you find yourself consuming for an hour before you realize 60 minutes have passed. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChuck BowenSep 23, 2015
Season 1 Review: The Player is pulp trash with an admirable sense of its own disposability, running through gimmicks nearly as efficiently as Alex plows through requisitely faceless thugs. Read full review
42
Boston HeraldMark A. PerigardSep 24, 2015
Season 1 Review: The show does not inspire confidence. Read full review
40
Las Vegas WeeklyJosh BellSep 24, 2015
Season 1 Review: The show’s version of Vegas is all sin and no city, with basic, glaring geography errors (a character runs through the distinctive sights of Fremont Street and in the next scene refers to it as the Strip). Its narrative and dramatic errors are even less forgivable. Read full review
40
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob OwenSep 24, 2015
Season 1 Review: Too many NBC dramas are now all about conspiracies and secret societies. That’s getting tiresome. Case in point, NBC’s The Player. Read full review
40
SlateWilla PaskinSep 21, 2015
Season 1 Review: Without a steady spray of sawdust coming from Snipes’ direction, there’s too much time to focus on the show’s loony premise and unspeakable morals. Read full review
37
USA TodayRobert BiancoSep 23, 2015
Season 1 Review: The Player does stand out. Just not in a way that is likely to make anyone want to watch. Read full review
37
St. Louis Post-DispatchGail PenningtonSep 4, 2015
Season 1 Review: Phillip Winchester gets tangled up with Wesley Snipes in Las Vegas in a muddled scenario that involves predicting crimes and seeking vengeance. Read full review
33
Washington PostHank StueverSep 16, 2015
Season 1 Review: The concept in NBC’s The Player is lamentably simple and might have been better off as a video game. Read full review
30
The Salt Lake TribuneScott D. PierceSep 25, 2015
Season 1 Review: The action sequences are cool. Unbelievable, but cool. Fast forward through the rest of this drivel and just watch those, if you must. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)Margaret LyonsSep 24, 2015
Season 1 Review: The Player is flashy nonsense. Read full review
30
The WrapHeidi PatalanoSep 24, 2015
Season 1 Review: Though it has some slick car chases, The Player lacks the wit, ingenuity and originality to inspire curiosity about what’s going to happen next. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterTim GoodmanSep 24, 2015
Season 1 Review: The Player is basically absurd with a dollop of stupid on top and a whole bunch of empty tossed in for filler. Yes, empty can be filler. Read full review
30
The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerSep 23, 2015
Season 1 Review: A new action series from NBC with a ludicrous plot full of unlikable characters played by not particularly likable actors. Read full review
30
VarietyBrian LowrySep 22, 2015
Season 1 Review: It’s hard to see the series blossoming into much of anything, based on the thudding nature of the premiere.... Even without the absolutely tortured nature of the premise here, the characters are stiff to the point of being laughable. Read full review
30
The Huffington PostMaureen RyanSep 17, 2015
Season 1 Review: I might have tried harder to get past the bad taste that situation left in my mouth, had the rest of the show not been fairly paint-by-numbers and generic, but as escapist hours go, there's not a lot of meat on the bone here. Read full review
20
We Got This CoveredIsaac Feldberg Sep 25, 2015
Season 1 Review: Everything on the screen has been played out, ad nauseam, in other series--we’ve seen dozens of brooding-hero-with-a-dead-wife narratives and omniscient-organization-secretly-saving-the-world backdrops in the past few years alone, but it’s entirely possible that none of those other shows have left as bland a taste in the mouth as this one. Read full review
20
Reason.comGlenn GarvinSep 21, 2015
Season 1 Review: In short, they're plotting to turn the world into an episode of Starsky and Hutch. Read full review
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