Critic Reviews

Manhattan is in other class entirely, the kind of series that is so good, it lifts a network into a whole new tier. What “Mad Men” did for AMC, Manhattan could do for WGN.

This is the best new show of the summer.

A megawatt start to a show crackling with megaton ambition.

John Benjamin Hickey’s point man performance leads the way, with his character’s demons and dilemmas already etched like fissures in his face. Carrying the weight of the world can be heavy lifting. Manhattan so far shows every sign of being able to shoulder the load.

This is a very smart show about incredibly smart people, and it's only gotten better as it's gone along.

A beautifully executed 1940s period drama about the men and women involved in the top-secret Manhattan Project is at once transporting and provocative.

In a summer that’s offered new programs that pretty much all sit on the spectrum from “silly, but still curious” (Extant, The Strain) on one end to “just plain silly” (Dating Naked) on the other, Manhattan is the most grown up, worth-watching new series we have.

The series is stronger and more fully realized through four episodes of season two than it was at a comparable point in season one.

History tells us what the Manhattan Project unleashed on the world, but Manhattan conjures a compelling (fictional) journey for the men and women who made it happen.

Ultimately it’s that frisson of complication that makes Manhattan worth watching--the performances are good, the writing is good, and the premise is good, but the complication of our own history is involving and fantastic.