Critical Reception
Review aggregate Metacritic indicated positive critical response for all five seasons. The average scores for the first through fourth seasons were 72/100, 71/100, 79/100, and 70/100, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The fifth and final season received an average score of 85/100, or "universal acclaim".
Heather Havrilesky of Salon.com said of Big Love, "There are elements of this new series that have a quirkiness that might seem deliberate or overly clever against a different backdrop, but that feels natural in its own gracefully odd environment."
Time magazine's James Poniewozik named it one of the Top 10 Returning Series of 2007, ranking it at #5.
However, the Phoenix New Times's Robert L. Pela called the show a "hot-soccer-mom fantasy" and "about as down and dirty as the old sitcom Three's Company", and said its portrayal of polygamy was "just as tidy as a deodorant commercial".
In contrast, the San Francisco Chronicle's Tim Goodman called Bill Paxton a "wonderfully underappreciated actor" and the show itself "compelling, but not easy".
Read more about this topic: Big Love
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or reception:
“The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered.”
—Jean Piaget (1896–1980)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)