Queenie; The Acolyte | Critics

“Is Queenie the ‘black Bridget Jones’, because the creator Candice Carty-Williams (on whose critically acclaimed bestseller the present is predicated) has known as it? Hardly, even when at one level our heroine exhibits as much as a celebration wrongly dressed as a bunny woman. However it could simply be the black Fleabag. Dionne Brown is terrific within the lead position. Her Queenie is heat, likeable, a type of TV characters who arrives absolutely shaped from the very first scene. Which is an efficient factor, given she is in 95 per cent of them.”
James Jackson, The Occasions

“Prickly and defensive, this heroine is much less instantly lovable than Bridget Jones or Fanny Worth. However she evokes the identical want in us, a need to see her kind out her feelings and fall in love — with the fitting man!”
Christopher Stevens, Each day Mail

“Queenie herself is kind of superbly rendered by Dionne Brown, within the form of efficiency that you just solely ever discover when an actor has fallen hook, line and sinker for his or her character. It makes an viewers love a personality too, and in a bit as centrally focussed as Queenie, that’s important. The place Queenie stumbles is in its plotting. There’s, inevitably on this post-Freudian age, an unspecified childhood trauma that lies beneath all of Queenie’s self-defeating choices. Whereas this can be psychologically credible, it’s additionally change into the hoariest TV arc within the guide.”
Benji Wilson, The Telegraph

“Showrunner Carty-Williams and her fellow screenwriters deftly stability these extra critical storylines with lighter, comedian moments, and Brown is a deeply empathetic display presence: she brings pathos to Queenie’s psychological well being struggles with out smoothing over her spiky sense of humour and her many foibles, backed up by a successful ensemble forged. Queenie is that uncommon factor: an adaptation that’s positive to be as beloved because the guide that impressed it.”
Katie Rosseinsky, The Impartial

“The best way it’s instructed – with dry humour and sexual frankness – feels a bit too acquainted. What validates Queenie’s existence within the pantheon of TV’s flawed feminine leads is Brown’s star high quality, Carty-Williams’ sharp observations and the present’s joyful love letter to south London. On display, Queenie is as actual as she was on the web page.”
Rachel Sigee, The i

“Queenie appears like a dramedy dreamed up by half-arsed AI. The breakup, the queer pal who encourages her up to now once more, even the goals of creating it as a author within the huge metropolis are painfully rote cliches. As a result of Queenie feels so imprecise, investing in any of those plotlines is troublesome. It additionally turns into more and more unclear who this present is making an attempt to attraction to. Its depictions of Black womanhood are so fundamental that it’s onerous to think about Black feminine audiences being impressed by its insights.”
Leila Latif, The Guardian

“Lots of Star Wars’ greatest tales come when it strays from black and white storytelling, and – like Andor earlier than it – The Acolyte thrives when it exists within the gray. The difficulty of who will get to regulate energy and what meaning for the Jedi, Sith, and everybody caught in between is thought-provoking and difficult. Thus far, The Acolyte is a few rungs under the most effective Star Wars dwell motion collection – Andor and The Mandalorian deserve that accolade – however it’s on the fitting trajectory.”
Amon Warmann, The i

“Reward should go to Showrunner Leslye Headland for making an attempt to do one thing completely different with Star Wars, with the idea of a neighborhood of feminine dissidents accessing a forbidden facet of the Drive. But regardless of a reported $25m per episode finances, the collection suffers from the identical flat, ‘low cost’ look that was a problem with Obi-Wan Kenobi, whereas the pacy motion scenes by no means compensate for the clunking dialogue. It’s a spirited effort, however within the continuum of Disney’s Star Wars hits and misses, The Acolyte lands bang within the center.”
Ed Energy, The Impartial

“In the end,  that is nostalgia sci-fi, a children’ TV present geared toward 50 yr olds who, within the UK, grew up within the days when Physician Who-style journey meant wobbly units and creatures made out of polystyrene. The Acolyte has many instances that manufacturing finances, however its coronary heart, reasonably charmingly, is hewn from that awestruck previous that had area as an infinite journey playground, not one lengthy darkish dystopia.”
Keith Watson, The Telegraph