Critic Reviews

While the four episodes presented to critics for preview offered just enough bearings to determine that bearings are of limited use in the universe of American Gods, it’s safe to say even this early that it’s one of the most imaginative, adventurous, and deeply weird experiments on television--an entrancingly trippy metaphorical melee that elevates an investigation of American identity to a supernatural plane.

American Gods is great television but it’s also a tremendous work of self-reflexive art, one that remains outrageously entertaining without giving away the complex, violent mysteries at its roiling core.

American Gods will be an overload of personality for some people. And yet there’s more powerful, memorable ideas and images in these first four episodes than most shows contain in their entire runs. It’s a series that defies traditional description or viewing. As Anderson’s character says to Shadow Moon, “Don’t fight gravity.” This show is gravity.

Viewers unfamiliar with Gaiman’s novel may have trouble following the TV series. The story contains lots of sides and flashbacks. But stick with it. The payoff is there. This is Starz’s most ambitious and satisfying offering yet.

The conscientious visual style that Fuller honed on “Hannibal” achieves riotous new heights of sensuality in this series. Green, a DC Comics veteran whose television credits include serving as an executive producer on “Heroes,” aids in harmonizing the story’s surfeit of histories and personalities into an intelligible and spellbinding structure.

[Bryan Fuller and Michael Green have] blended their sensibilities, weaving a rich tapestry of whimsy, epic action, and deft characterization. Practically speaking, it will definitely tide you over until that other fantasy drama returns. But thematically, it could knock someone off their throne.

Some might want a quicker pace from American Gods. Yo, po-mo Clash of the Titans, gets to the clashing! But I was consistently engrossed. The characters, the concept, the deeply considered filmmaking captured my imagination.

It’s no Spartacus, of course, but American Gods manages to pull off a unique combination of ideas and stylistic action that will make a believer out of almost anyone.

While we’re still waiting to see if the story’s substance can match its visual splendor, there’s so much meat here, it’s hard to doubt the blood is coming--especially with Fuller wielding the cleaver.

The spirit of Gaiman’s classic has been captured, but not yet the vision.