Metascore
53

Mixed or average reviews - based on 12 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 12
  2. Negative: 2 out of 12

Critic Reviews

  1. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: David Zurawik
    Mar 23, 2022
    75
    I'll take the heavy-handed product placement and all the gratuitous skin shots in the world for a drama that celebrates academic accomplishment and tries to communicate to its teen viewers the danger, exhilaration and joy of daring to exceed social-class expectations. [12 Jul 2000]
  2. Reviewed by: Linda Stasi
    Mar 17, 2022
    70
    The acting is really, really good. And there’s not a clunker in the group.
  3. Reviewed by: Rob Owen
    Mar 17, 2022
    60
    It doesn't make for an original TV show, of course, but Young Americans still manages to be guilty summer fun. Mindless and cliche, to be sure, but escapist entertainment nonetheless.
  4. Reviewed by: Tom Shales
    Mar 17, 2022
    60
    What a tacky way to begin the show. But things get better as the premiere goes on, and as the series goes on, who knows? They might even get good.
  5. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: John Levesque
    Mar 23, 2022
    58
    The only sparkle comes from Bosworth, who seems to be aware that "Young Americans" might work better as spoof than as semiserious drama. [12 Jul 2000]
  6. Reviewed by: Ken Tucker
    Mar 17, 2022
    58
    Its sexual-confusion subplots alone will make for a summer’s worth of sincere young actors reducing its target audience of skeptical young people to shrieks of appalled amusement.
  7. Houston Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ann Hodges
    Mar 23, 2022
    50
    A bubbling stew of raging hormones, buff bodies and the culture shock of rich meets poor. [12 Jul 2000]
  8. Reviewed by: Scott D. Pierce
    Mar 17, 2022
    50
    The show could turn out to be one of those guilty pleasures like the early years of Dynasty or Melrose Place — a show that's fun because it is so melodramatic and dumb.
  9. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Matthew Gilbert
    Mar 23, 2022
    42
    If the show stimulates anything above the neck, it's the realization that prettier-than-thou programming like "Young Americans" is little more than glossy magazine ads set to motion.
  10. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Storm
    Mar 23, 2022
    40
    Time marches on, or crawls very slowly, if you happen to be watching Young Americans. [12 Jul 2000, p.D01]
  11. Reviewed by: Steve Johnson
    Mar 17, 2022
    37
    Give WB credit, at least, for trying to pretend this show is not a regular-season reject they're airing in summer for accounting purposes.
  12. Boston Herald
    Reviewed by: Marisa Guthrie
    Mar 23, 2022
    33
    Just when you thought the teen melodrama was completely played out, along comes another trite "Dawson's Creek" clone to cause cringes of annoyance and pangs of distress. [12 Jul 2000]