It's not something one expects to binge breathlessly in a weekend. But this gripping adaptation, developed and exec produced by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Watchmen), expands Butler's groundbreaking exploration of America's racist history into a profound puzzle-box thriller. ... Newcomer Johnson is absolutely mesmerizing as Dana.

In all, "Kindred" is a reasonable, economic realization of Butler's classic story grounded by Johnson's naturalistic and potent performance, one whose strengths compensate for the strange lack of chemistry with Stock – who does a fine job, don't get us wrong. ... They work well enough to keep the audience invested in their unexpected journey, even at its most harrowing, as well as buying our interest in the possibility of continuing beyond eight episodes.

There is potential for Kindred to go awry if she show’s writers end up concentrating on the wrong side of Dana’s time travel adventure. But it’s definitely an intriguing premise that brings up so many questions that we’ll keep watching to see if they’re answered.

The side-quest to find her mother never really turns up anything especially revelatory and only adds to the sense that Kindred is spinning its wheels.

The time jump [from 1976 in the book to the show's 2016] may rankle purists, but it’s hard to imagine that an author as prescient as Butler, who died in 2006, wouldn’t appreciate such an update. ... “Kindred” takes other detours that don’t pay off as well in the first season. ... The series weaves in a thread aligning the 19th-century patrolmen who gleefully round up runaways with modern-day police forces, a comparison Butler explored much more subtly in her book.

It’s a credit to showrunner Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins that the whole thing doesn’t collapse under the weight of its premise. That said, the project does betray the telltale stress marks of trying to make Butler’s complicated book fit a serialized TV framework, relying on cliffhangers to the point of exhaustion.

The show, created by playwright Branden Jacobs Jenkins, plops Butler’s themes into a centrifuge and spits out a gray, cold, unappealing mush of an eight-hour drama.