- Network: Netflix
- Series Premiere Date: Jun 19, 2025
Critic Reviews
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The Waterfront is the mercilessly entertaining flex of a showrunner who knows exactly what he's doing.
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Overall, “The Waterfront” is the Netflix equivalent of a beach read, but it’s highly entertaining. The series boasts all the good bone structure of a traditional family drama, with threads of criminality, infidelity, lies, drugs and everything in between woven throughout each episode.
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“The Waterfront” is a keeper because of the outrageous behavior of its morally compromised characters — with Grace leading [t]he way.
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“The Waterfront” seems unlikely to be as seismic as some of Williamson’s best-loved work, but it does have more bite than many other streaming dramas set in beach towns with surprisingly high murder rates. The dialogue is at least occasionally snappy, and McCallany and Bello make excellent sparring partners.
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The Buckleys are beginning to finally assess themselves as people, and the ensemble is so good at that self-reflection that they anchor all the alternating tragedies and theatrics and help nudge The Waterfront toward the deep end of smooth-brained summer TV.
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It's fun, but totally insubstantial.