‘Crisis In Six Scenes’ Critical Roundup: Reviewers Not Impressed With Woody Allen’s TV Debut
“Crisis in Six Scenes” is Woody Allen’s first television venture which is set to debut on Amazon this Friday, September 30. The six-episode series stars Allen, alongside Elaine May, as a suburban New York couple who take in a young hippie (portrayed by Miley Cyrus) caught up in the ’60s movement and inspired by radical communist leaders. Here’s what the critics are saying about the half-hour comedy.
IndieWire’s Ben Travers gave the series a C- and wrote:
“To say ‘Crisis in Six Scenes’ is a disaster would be an overstatement…There’s simply little new or striking in the six half-hour episodes, much of which constitute Allen recycling old caricatures spouting the same philosophies and debates we’ve heard from him over the last six decades.”
READ MORE: ‘Crisis in Six Scenes’ Review: Woody Allen Takes the Money and Bombs in TV Debut
Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter was also not a fan of the series adding:
“‘Crisis in Six Scenes’ isn’t very good. It’s compelling in very infrequent, late-episode snippets and stacks up poorly against a plethora of current, artistically ambitious half-hours…[It] is absolutely best seen in one sitting (partly because if you stop anywhere in the first three episodes then you’re unlikely to return).
Robert Bianco of USA Today calls the show “familiar”:
“[First] it’s not a series at all, not in any normal sense of the word. It’s a slightly more than two-hour movie, sliced into six segments — none of which would work on its own…The second is that it’s very, very Woodyish: The tone is completely familiar…As for the third, that would be a cautionary note that ‘Crisis’ is not Allen at his peak, nor at his most serious and contemplative as an artist. ‘Crisis’ is a bauble, a light comedy that starts very slowly (consider that another caution) and builds to a satisfyingly funny conclusion.”
On the other hand, David Wiegand of the San Francisco Chronicle stated that “Allen has fun with his first TV outing”:
The performances are winning, with wonderful cameo contributions from actors and comics…Cyrus is modestly successful as the radical with patrician roots but it takes her a while to grow into the role…Fact is, television can support more complicated characters these days. Allen might ponder that for future TV projects, but in the meantime, we’ll happily wallow in the inspired silliness of ‘Crisis.’”
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