Critic Reviews

Messiah is potent stuff packed with fine performances.

The series has a lot going on, and it's certainly food for thought. Yet given what a third-rail topic the subject tends to be, the rewards don't seem to justify the risk, in the same way the merits of "Messiah" season one, once completed, don't wholly justify the time investment.

Netflix’s “Messiah” is a half-fascinating, half-frustrating new series.

It’s one thing to stoke audiences’ imagination and anxiety with uncertainty, but do it for too long, and to no conclusive end, and what you’re left with is characters, situations and conundrums that are increasingly impossible to care about—especially when the show has nothing enlightening to say about them.

Messiah is a New Year’s curio that doesn’t know whether it wants to be an esoteric rumination on leadership and hope or a spy romp with New Testament bells on. ... The real twist, however, is how divinely underwhelming the whole thing is.

Because Eva is such a bland character and Al-Massih is by the show’s design unknowable — yielding nothing over the show’s first half other than miracles we don’t know whether to take at face value — there’s vastly less here. Over the show’s first season, no viewer could be blamed for eventually giving up the faith.

So much is so right about “Messiah” that it makes the eventual collapse into paranoid politics and alt-right clichés all the more painful. ... By the end of episode 10, you’re not sure that “Messiah” believes in much.

Don't be fooled by the Netflix auspices, the reasonably decent production values and a couple wildly overqualified castmembers. ... If you're not on the fence and you're eager to watch Messiah...enjoy. My saying it's a badly made show doesn't make it exist any less.