Will
CBS | TNT | Release Date: July 10, 2017
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
62
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
14
Negative:
1
Watch Now
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleDavid WiegandJul 6, 2017
Season 1 Review: The dialogue ripples with sly and subtle references to plays and immortal lines our young country bumpkin will create in future years. ... [Laurie] Davidson is magnetic. You watch this guy with near certainty that you’re watching a new star. But his is only one of several extraordinary performances. Read full review
83
IndieWireLiz Shannon MillerJul 11, 2017
Season 1 Review: Sure, it’s fun to see Shakespeare get some; fortunately, Will manages to find depth beyond that. Read full review
83
NewsdayVerne GayJul 7, 2017
Season 1 Review: Entertaining newcomer full of energy, passion and baloney--the ideal summer diversion. Read full review
83
Uncle BarkyEd BarkJul 7, 2017
Season 1 Review: Precious little, beyond his storied and enduring plays, is known about Shakespeare’s personal life or even his sexuality. So TNT is making him up as he goes along in a rousing, colorful drama that signifies more than nothing and indeed can often be quite something. Read full review
80
Cleveland Plain DealerMark DawidziakJul 7, 2017
Season 1 Review: Will is as sensual as it is suspenseful, as bawdy as it is bloody, as lusty as it it is lyrical. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonJul 6, 2017
Season 1 Review: Ewen Bremner is deliciously, excessively vile as a sadist in service to the queen and, worse, a true believer. But the whole cast is, verily, first-rate and clever. Read full review
80
TV Guide MagazineMatt RoushJul 6, 2017
Season 1 Review: Will is stimulating, refreshingly original entertainment, rowdy in its lurid re-creation of a riotous Elizabethan era where there is an insatiable appetite for what's new. [10-23 Jul 2017, p.12]
75
The Lincoln Journal StarJeff KorbelikJul 10, 2017
Season 1 Review: Created by Craig Pearce, the series is brash and vibrant, driven by punk rock. It makes the Oscar-winning “Shakespeare in Love” look tame in comparison. Read full review
75
CNNBrian LowryJul 10, 2017
Season 1 Review: Will uses this dense, bawdy backdrop to create a highly stylized world, as its namesake receives a sometimes-harsh education in life and love that will inevitably inform his genius. Or more simply, if you're in the market for a slightly different take on a historical costume drama, this TNT show just might be the thing. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchGail PenningtonJul 6, 2017
Season 1 Review: It’s also a lot of fun, lively and fast-paced, with comedy, tragedy, action and history, just as audiences of 1589, and today, demand. Read full review
75
Washington PostHank StueverJun 15, 2017
Season 1 Review: The theatrical shenanigans and poverty-level desperation gives Will a bawdy and often joyfully punkish sense of community. Read full review
70
Los Angeles Daily NewsRob LowmanJul 10, 2017
Season 1 Review: I would suspect that those more familiar with Shakespeare’s plays and the times may appreciate Will a bit more than others. Still, the series is hardly a stuffy costume drama. The mostly young cast is quite good, and there is plenty of sex, violence, comedy and intrigue to keep it amusing for non-Shakespeare fans. Read full review
60
The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerJul 10, 2017
Season 1 Review: If you’re a theater lover who was hoping for an intelligent treatment of the great man’s formative years, it will all seem a bit silly. If you like overstuffed costume dramas with a veneer of literacy layered over debauchery, latch on. Read full review
60
Boston GlobeMatthew GilbertJul 6, 2017
Season 1 Review: Will is fun, like a supercharged “Shakespeare in Love,” but the regalia, pacing, and dazzling colors often seem like compensations for a somewhat obvious and awkwardly expository script. Read full review
50
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob OwenJul 25, 2017
Season 1 Review: Too often the show is raucous without reason, but Will sparks to life in a scene where Shakespeare engages in what in modern times could be compared to a rap battle or poetry slam, only in Will it’s a word competition using iambic pentameter. Read full review
50
The Huffington PostDavid HinckleyJul 18, 2017
Season 1 Review: It’s not a dealbreaker of an idea to take a famous historical figure and put him or her into a world that makes his or her life more relatable to young folks who come along several centuries later. It works better, though, if the modern trappings flavor the historic character, rather than the other way around. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Matt Zoller SeitzJul 10, 2017
Season 1 Review: Will starts to figure itself out as is goes along, paying less attention to the parts that seemed like bad ideas from the jump and focusing more tightly on the stuff that actually works. It’s a bit of a mess anyway, but I like that it exists. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDaniel FienbergJul 10, 2017
Season 1 Review: As long as Will is having lively fun with the absurdity of its premise, the show is entertainingly dumb, but by the third and fourth episodes sent to critics, that commitment has lapsed into something much blander. Read full review
50
The AtlanticSophie GilbertJul 10, 2017
Season 1 Review: Will doesn’t seem that interested in Shakespeare as a playwright. And the resulting attempts to shoehorn him into other roles--sultry lover, newly minted celebrity, reluctant renegade--make for a frequently befuddling viewing experience. ... The odd thing is that when Will focuses on its hero’s artistic process, it’s not bad at all. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesRobert LloydJul 10, 2017
Season 1 Review: It's a mixed bag--of melodrama and comedy, historicism and revisionism--that is always good to look at, if not always to watch. Read full review
50
VarietySonia SaraiyaJul 10, 2017
Season 1 Review: The result is a wildly anachronistic historical drama with tons of flair, albeit flair that is neither original nor meaningful. In its defense, however, it manages to be fun--eventually. Read full review
42
Boston HeraldMark A. PerigardJul 6, 2017
Season 1 Review: The shifts from comedy to bloodletting can be unnerving, even if the whole thing is unconvincing. Read full review
40
SalonMelanie McFarlandJul 10, 2017
Season 1 Review: These opening episodes of Will heave with style at the expense of soul or substance. The real tension of the overall plot doesn’t kick in until the fourth episode, but before that the audience isn’t presented much to hang onto besides a surge of dirty, pretty visuals--and those baubles can only carry a story so far. Read full review
40
Vox.comJul 10, 2017
Season 1 Review: It’s called Will, and its focus lies in its shallow, dull, and unconvincing portrait of Shakespeare. What a waste. Read full review
40
Yahoo TVKen TuckerJul 10, 2017
Season 1 Review: For all its frenetic pacing, Will seems wheezily old-fashioned, the umpteenth attempt to attract a young audience to great art by modernizing it--except that Will’s ideas of modernity are a half-century old. Read full review
40
Las Vegas WeeklyJosh BellJul 6, 2017
Season 1 Review: The problem with Will is not necessarily that it fictionalizes Shakespeare’s life, but that it does so in such a dull, haphazard way, with little connection to what makes Shakespeare’s work endure or what makes his time period fascinating. Read full review
30
The Salt Lake TribuneScott D. PierceJul 10, 2017
Season 1 Review: It's chaotic, sometimes almost incoherent. Wildly inconsistent, it veers from dark drama to lighthearted fun. 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 87 Hacks: Season 5
4 87 Industry: Season 4
5 87 Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal:...
6 85 The Beatles Anthology
7 85 The Traitors [UK]: Season 4
8 85 Bait: Season 1
9 84 Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!
10 83 Lord of the Flies
11 83 Riot Women: Season 1
12 83 For All Mankind: Season 5
13 81 The Muppet Show (2026)
14 80 Outlander (2014): Season 8
15 80 The Other Bennet Sister: Season 1
16 80 The Mighty Nein: Season 1
17 80 The Comeback: Season 3
18 80 The American Revolution
19 80 One Piece (2023): Season 2
20 80 Dark Winds: Season 4
SEE ALL