Wicked City

:

Season 1
  • Network: ABC
  • Series Premiere Date: Oct 27, 2015
Metascore
33

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 30 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 30
  3. Negative: 16 out of 30
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Critic Reviews

  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Jeff Jensen
    Oct 26, 2015
    16
    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]
  2. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Margaret Lyons
    Oct 27, 2015
    30
    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.
  3. Newsday
    Reviewed by: Verne Gay
    Oct 26, 2015
    25
    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.
  5. Philadelphia Daily News
    Reviewed by: Ellen Gray
    Oct 26, 2015
    30
    [The pilot] is equal parts unpleasant and uninteresting.
  6. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: David Wiegand
    Oct 26, 2015
    25
    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.
  7. Slate
    Reviewed by: Willa Paskin
    Oct 27, 2015
    10
    Wicked City is both wan and distasteful, not as gruesome and blood-spattered as it could be, but thematically gross and tired nonetheless.
  8. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    Reviewed by: Gail Pennington
    Oct 27, 2015
    25
    The writing is cliched, the characters cartoonish and the action tedious, punctured by bloodshed.
  9. The Atlantic
    Reviewed by: David Sims
    Oct 27, 2015
    0
    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.
  10. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Tim Goodman
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    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.
  11. The Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Kristi Turnquist
    Oct 27, 2015
    20
    By the end of the first episode, it's clear that the series is less wicked, than wearisome. Something lousy this way comes.
  12. The Salt Lake Tribune
    Reviewed by: Scott D. Pierce
    Oct 26, 2015
    30
    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.
  13. The Wrap
    Reviewed by: Mekeisha Madden Toby
    Oct 27, 2015
    30
    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.
  14. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Robert Bianco
    Oct 26, 2015
    25
    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.
  15. Variety
    Reviewed by: Maureen Ryan
    Oct 23, 2015
    30
    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.
  16. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Hank Stuever
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    It’s violent in a dumb, done-before, tediously psychosexual way.
  17. Yahoo TV
    Reviewed by: Ken Tucker
    Oct 27, 2015
    10
    [A] sordid enterprise.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
4.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 33 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 33
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 33
  3. Negative: 17 out of 33
  1. Knighthawk81
    Oct 29, 2015
    3
    This is a wholly unnecessary show. It's set in the early 1980s for some reason, and focuses on cops hunting a serial killer while said killerThis is a wholly unnecessary show. It's set in the early 1980s for some reason, and focuses on cops hunting a serial killer while said killer stalks victims and finds a partner in crime. This feels like something of a reach, especially on network TV with its constraints. The show wants to be edgy but it can't accomplish that in this format. Instead, the performances seem strange and the story and characters are gross. This isn't the kind of show that's going to solidify the 10 p.m. spot on Tuesdays for ABC.… Full Review »
  2. evonnepal
    Nov 6, 2015
    10
    Love this show. Love the 80'feel and the way the show gives us the view from the police and the killers view. I hope it does not getLove this show. Love the 80'feel and the way the show gives us the view from the police and the killers view. I hope it does not get cancelled! Hate when that happens!… Full Review »
  3. larissalima2
    Nov 2, 2015
    10
    Algo bem positivo que me chamou atenção no Piloto é o fato de a série não ter pressa alguma, mesmo nesse primeiro episódio, para desenvolverAlgo bem positivo que me chamou atenção no Piloto é o fato de a série não ter pressa alguma, mesmo nesse primeiro episódio, para desenvolver sua trama. Ao contrário da maioria, não joga informações excessivas para ir juntando durante a temporada. A sensação que passa é que está tudo já planejado, com começo, meio e fim, e, pelo menos quanto a isso, não precisamos nos preocupar.… Full Review »
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