Reception
The episode was watched by 7.5 million viewers during its original airing in the United States. Ken Parish Perkins of the Philadelphia Inquirer called the pilot "dark, moody and confusing". Ed Bark of The Dallas Morning News said "Fans of heavy automatic weapons fire, bloodletting and unrelenting bleakness won't be disappointed. A supporting character named Mike Pinochio supplies the gutter-level language, none of which can be printed here." David Kronke of the Daily News of Los Angeles said: "Fortunately, Carter makes the show's pilot episode exciting, smart and edgy enough that, for the time being, viewers will be intrigued enough to see how this ordeal will play out." Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote: "If most of these Harsh Realm characters are virtual, why should we care? And if the show is playing out inside Hobbes' brain, why do any of the events depicted matter? Presumably future episodes will answer those questions, but the pilot exudes lots of flash and little heart. The characters lack any spark of life and depth. Harsh Realm could improve, but at this point dark conspiracies and paranoia have become tiresome. How many viewers will stick with Harsh Realm to a point it starts to make sense?" Mark McGuire of the Times Union commented that "Carter's script and the direction of Daniel Sackheim are riddled with hoary, snory contemporary clichés."
Read more about this topic: Harsh Realm
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)