Critic Reviews

“Gaslit,” created by Robbie Pickering, is the rare show that has loads of fun bringing history into sharper focus. It takes the names you know, and may have read about, and shows why you should care.

Funny, tragic, scary, creepy, wild, insane. Hey, what's not to like?

Engrave an Emmy for Julia Roberts. She comes out blazing in this riveting series about loud and proud Martha Mitchell, the wife of Nixon Attorney General John Mitchell (Sean Penn) who found herself discredited as a delusional drunk for speaking the truth about Watergate.

Roberts’ all-in performance and those of her co-stars, especially Allison Tolman (“Downward Dog”) as a sympathetic reporter and Shea Whigham as an accurately unhinged G. Gordon Liddy, are a delight, and the whole endeavor is entertaining enough to recommend.

All together, through the seven episodes made available for critics, “Gaslit” is a handsome limited series about a particularly ugly American sensibility.

It’s a taut, stylishly shot thriller that finds horror in unblinking submission, groupthink, and the sexist dynamics too easily reinforced by the mainstream media’s coverage of outspoken female figures.

The series can be watched as dance, a pair of alternating actorly pas de deux, set off by ensemble pieces, and is completely enjoyable as such. ... Roberts and Penn do so well playing people in love, when they’re in love, that you don’t care who they are, historically.

Gaslit has taken its ample ingredients and turned them into a very good, very watchable drama that steadily finds its feet.

The overblown nature of it all matches both Mitchell’s larger-than-life charisma and the cartoonish incompetence of the egotistical politicians. It is also bolstered by a sharply written and surprisingly funny script that magnifies everyone’s flaws grotesquely.

We didn't need another traditional retelling of Watergate, and we certainly didn't need another allegorical fable about how Western democracy is going down the pan. But an under-told scandalous story told through a genuinely funny lens? Yes please.