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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
20
Mixed:
18
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews
The TelegraphJan 3, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Although the relentless superficiality of the characters gets tiring, it allows you to keep laughing as they double cross and second guess each other at a turbocharged pace. There’s fun to be had at the expense of the premise of the school as a microcosm of American society.
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The GuardianDec 4, 2019
Sep 30, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Even when The Politician is flailing all over the place, its heart is tapped into the pain of living in a world full of rich white people and forcing down everything that makes you a little bit different. Like Murphy’s best shows, The Politician is about how sad being happy can be.
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Sep 26, 2019
Sep 27, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The sharp dialogue and great casting help "Politician," but its success rests mostly on the shoulders of Platt, who carries a big role admirably. ... "Politician" suffers whenever it wanders from Payton. ... But despite its occasional flaws, "Politician" is a relief to watch, because it manages to make fiction stranger than life once more. That is no small achievement in 2019.
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The Daily BeastSep 30, 2019
Season 1 Review:
It’s tonally all over the place. Respective elements of it are intriguing and occasionally fantastic. Platt is a captivating actor. ... Imperfect as it is, every decision, from the casting to the camera work to the tone and the themes merit dissection. ... Is a series’ mere ambition and the promise of an interesting season two enough to merit endorsement? In the case of The Politician, we’re surprising even ourselves by voting yes.
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ColliderJun 19, 2020
Season 2 Review:
Like the first season, there’s a high level of energy that verges often on a level of camp that is almost reminiscent of vintage Glee episodes; there’s a lot of speechifying on the part of characters. But while at times the second season is quite watchable — 90 percent of the time thanks to its cast — the show doesn’t really know what it wants to say about, well, anything.
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Sep 27, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The Politician balances well-honed satire and melodramatic frenzy, succeeding in its aim to engender both a critical appraisal of real-world politics and grotesque car-crash voyeurism. Both of the show’s competing sensibilities flow from Platt’s captivating performance, and one’s enjoyment of the series will largely depend on one’s take on Payton.
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Sep 25, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Platt is mostly excellent, but he's not a comic actor, which is fine because "The Politician" is not exactly a comedy either. Never one to be bound by labels or genres anyway, Murphy has created a dramedy, satire, tragedy, romance, coming-of-age story and political parody, all of which contribute to viewer whiplash if not exactly ennui.
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The TelegraphJun 19, 2020
Season 2 Review:
Midler plays Hadassah Gold, loyal chief of staff to Senator Dede Standish, who is played by Judith Light. The pair don’t so much steal the show as turn it into their own personal heist movie. Unfortunately, they’re not on screen all the time, and we’re stuck with the rest of Murphy’s characters.
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Sep 30, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Someday “The Politician” could someday evolve into a meaningful, potent statement about the hazards and rewards about ambition and leadership, particular as those ideas are viewed by would-be officials and the electorate. Right now, however, it says a lot more about Murphy’s ambition than anyone else’s, real or fictional.
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Sep 26, 2019
Season 1 Review:
“The Politician” seems to grow quickly bored with itself, shifting tones and adding so many twists it starts to feel like improv. It asks you to take its characters seriously while pitching them into caricature. The plot moves constantly, but it doesn’t really advance. ... The series has enough wit and visual style, though, that it’s a pleasure to watch in the moment — just as long as you don’t think beyond the moment.
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Sep 25, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Somehow, it’s all in here, a mash-up of deadpan vibes and manic melodrama made brighter and prettier: all the best parts, underlined to death. The result is both irritating and fun, a feeling that has become something of a Murphy hallmark. Which also means that “The Politician” is exceedingly watchable. ... As the story plods on, “The Politician’s” atmospherics do wear thin.
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Sep 23, 2019
Season 1 Review:
With a wandering focus and an erratic sense of tone, The Politician simply doesn't come together as a clean vision. It remains generally watchable throughout thanks to a great cast and fleeting moments of inspiration and it actually teases a promising second season.
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Sep 26, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Marking Ryan Murphy's first series for Netflix, The Politician feels like a mashup of the producer's high-school-set dramas -- a dollop of "Scream Queens," a dash of "Glee," and a whole lot of the Alexander Payne-directed movie "Election." Throw in some high-profile casting, and it's a shiny but not especially bright bauble that falls short of a winning ticket.
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Sep 25, 2019
Season 1 Review:
It’s so aggressively kitschy and cutesy that, on the rare occasions when it calms down and tries to be earnest and affecting, the sincerity comes across as calculated, like a politician tearing up while delivering the same campaign speech for the fourth time in a week. Considering the show’s many irritating and exhausting qualities, it’s a small miracle that The Politician hangs together, much less that it manages to produce some touching and insightful moments.
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Jun 25, 2020
Season 2 Review:
The gloss of "The Politician" may not compensate for its overall shallowness or the messy pointlessness of its plot, but it does remind us of celebrity's power to persuade us to make foolish decisions, including with our time. Except, that is, for these two hours [two episodes about voters].
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Jun 23, 2020
Season 2 Review:
The Politician’s second season is snappier than season one, avoiding the midseason doldrums that really plagued that first run of episodes. It turns out, though, that a show can be snappier while still being remarkably dull, and for The Politician, that’s largely because it has zero conviction in the full wackiness of its own premise.
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Jun 19, 2020
Season 2 Review:
There’s no understating the immediate way Light’s presence (along with Bette Midler as Hadassah Gold, Dede’s conniving chief of staff) lifts “The Politician” into a more crackling realm. ... Everything that first seemed smart, snarky and on-point about “The Politician” begins to wear thin; the jokes that it makes — as well as the contemporary real-life debacles it lampoons — are too easily made.
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Sep 23, 2019
Season 1 Review:
On occasion, Platt or one of his co-stars gets to sing, and for those few precious minutes, Payton will seem tantalizingly real, in a manner suggesting The Politician would have been better off as a full-on musical, where the format forgave some of the artificiality. But those bursts of genuineness are few and far between in this version. ... A show that indulges their [Murphy, Falchuk, and Brennan's] worst impulses.
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ColliderSep 23, 2019
Season 1 Review:
I see a lot of half-baked ideas about politics as a means of change, about the harmful dividing lines of class and privilege that separate potential allies, about the importance of the caring and keeping of your mental health, and so much more. But at every turn, The Politician chooses an artificial, inauthentic way of expressing these ideas, of prioritizing the drama for the truth, and opting in for skating by with little else to offer but something superficially indulgent to lose yourself in for a while.
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Jun 19, 2020
Season 2 Review:
The second season of Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan's Netflix comedy is a hollow and perplexingly stale glimpse into American politics. At seven episodes, several running under 40 minutes, The Politician is neither effective escapism in a moment of general cultural discomfort nor does it have anything vaguely insightful to say about our electoral process — a basically unforgivable sin for a show airing in an election year.
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