Wicked City
ABC | Release Date: October 27, 2015
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
33
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
2
Mixed:
12
Negative:
16
Watch Now
Buy on
Stream On

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)Margaret LyonsOct 27, 2015
Season 1 Review: Westwick's sleazy preening is fun for a little while, and Farmiga's giving way more to her determined-reporter role than is written, but that does not an entire show make. The biggest sin here isn't blow-job murder. It's how boring that blow-job murder is. Read full review
30
The WrapMekeisha Madden TobyOct 27, 2015
Season 1 Review: Despite noticeable efforts to play Kent and Betty as wounded, troubled people with murderously kinky bedroom predilections, Westwick and Christensen’s stunted, one-note characters seem better suited as reenactments on an Investigation Discovery true-crime program than a prime-time series. Read full review
30
The Salt Lake TribuneScott D. PierceOct 26, 2015
Season 1 Review: The most disturbing thing about Wicked City is that it's not unusual. It's not original. It's not particularly interesting. It's just the latest series driven by violence against women. Read full review
30
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen GrayOct 26, 2015
Season 1 Review: [The pilot] is equal parts unpleasant and uninteresting. Read full review
30
VarietyMaureen RyanOct 23, 2015
Season 1 Review: A trifling and thoroughly inert drama about a murderer who is called “a tragic soul” in the program’s press notes. There is something tragic about Wicked City, but it’s not the lead character. Read full review
25
St. Louis Post-DispatchGail PenningtonOct 27, 2015
Season 1 Review: The writing is cliched, the characters cartoonish and the action tedious, punctured by bloodshed. Read full review
25
NewsdayVerne GayOct 26, 2015
Season 1 Review: Any series that calls itself Wicked City is pretty much asking for ridicule ("Sin City" already taken?), but to then go ahead and stuff the sausage with grade A baloney? That, my friends, is a demand. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleDavid WiegandOct 26, 2015
Season 1 Review: There should be more mystery about what makes Betty and Kent tick, but we know too much from the get-go. The psychological transparency of these two destroys whatever potential the show’s concept may have. Read full review
25
USA TodayRobert BiancoOct 26, 2015
Season 1 Review: The only thing challenging about Wicked City is the effort it takes to sit through it, and the only thing marginally fresh is its effort to up the perversion ante through a female accomplice who likes to squish spiders in her hands and rip the stitches out of old men. Read full review
20
The OregonianKristi TurnquistOct 27, 2015
Season 1 Review: By the end of the first episode, it's clear that the series is less wicked, than wearisome. Something lousy this way comes. Read full review
16
Entertainment WeeklyJeff JensenOct 26, 2015
Season 1 Review: It's a profoundly unnecessary, formally cloddish collection of grating cop-show cliches, antiseptically scuzzy nihilism, and just stupid, stupid stupidity, wrapped in cheap, loud nostalgia for the L.A. of the hair-metal '80s. [30 Oct 2015, p.58] Read full review
10
SlateWilla PaskinOct 27, 2015
Season 1 Review: Wicked City is both wan and distasteful, not as gruesome and blood-spattered as it could be, but thematically gross and tired nonetheless. Read full review
10
Yahoo TVKen TuckerOct 27, 2015
Season 1 Review: [A] sordid enterprise. Read full review
0
The AtlanticDavid SimsOct 27, 2015
Season 1 Review: Wicked City feels especially egregious. It’s a desperate play to be a dark, adults-only story that comes off instead as purely childish. Wicked City is, in short, gross. Read full review
0
The Hollywood ReporterTim GoodmanOct 26, 2015
Season 1 Review: The tone-deaf play for major league issues in a drama is recognizable for the disaster it is within mere minutes.... You shouldn’t bother with any of it. Read full review
0
Washington PostHank StueverOct 26, 2015
Season 1 Review: It’s violent in a dumb, done-before, tediously psychosexual way. Read full review
Current TV Shows
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 92 The Pitt: Season 2
2 90 The Celebrity Traitors UK: Season 1
3 88 Rivals
4 87 Hacks: Season 5
5 87 Industry: Season 4
6 87 Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal:...
7 85 The Beatles Anthology
8 85 The Traitors [UK]: Season 4
9 85 Bait: Season 1
10 84 Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!
11 83 Lord of the Flies
12 83 Riot Women: Season 1
13 83 For All Mankind: Season 5
14 81 The Muppet Show (2026)
15 80 Outlander (2014): Season 8
16 80 The Other Bennet Sister: Season 1
17 80 The Mighty Nein: Season 1
18 80 The Comeback: Season 3
19 80 The American Revolution
20 80 One Piece (2023): Season 2
SEE ALL