Watch Now
Where To Watch
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
Critic Reviews
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
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.
-
Payton’s story as a wealthy white teenager empowered by his own self-delusion is too familiar a tale to be so lightly drawn.
-
With these juicy themes in play, the first season of “The Politician” is nonetheless a mixed bag. ... And yet it’s highly watchable.
-
“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.
-
“The Politician” is never boring, but it never quite reaches the level you hope it would after that premiere. It struggles from a common Murphy problem in a lack of focus, but, much more surprisingly, often feels a bit toothless.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Even as the majority of the first season can feel frustratingly rough, the finale does succeed in setting up a properly outrageous second season.
-
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.
-
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.
-
On this middling first series, it’s unclear how much more we want to see Hobart and co. Unlike its confident anti-hero, The Politician hasn’t decided what it wants to be.
-
A baroquely yet dully overstuffed series that hides what makes it genuinely new for Murphy—the focus on a single character—in a familiar-for-him form: a histrionic teen melodrama.
-
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.
-
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.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 25 out of 40
-
Mixed: 7 out of 40
-
Negative: 8 out of 40
-
Jun 24, 2020
-
Mar 21, 2020
-
Nov 18, 2019