Critic Reviews

The show may not click with everyone, but it left me electrified.

[Showrunner and creator Sam Esmail is] a Kafka in the director’s chair, who sees alienation where everyone else sees a Facebook “like.” It’s as compelling and timely a vision as there is in a primetime series at the moment, and darkness is the price of admission.

Season 3 of Mr. Robot is a masterpiece, ballasting the global ambitions of season 2 while sharpening back to the meticulous build of season 1.

[The] tightly crafted pilot abjures the urge to make its own judgments on good/evil, sanity/delusion, isolation/connection, conscience/capitulation.

Mr. Robot remains one of the most dizzying, intoxicating, challenging shows on television, a gripping look at mental illness and brilliance run amok, tied to an essentially sweet, if damaged, character. It’s a show that poses Big Questions and dares to leave them hanging.

Two episodes (one of which many of you may have seen) isn't a big sample size to judge whether Mr. Robot will avoid the sophomore slump. But they're a very promising start, and a continuation of all that made the series so fascinating a year ago.

There’s a slow build in progress with this season, since Eliot has deliberately put himself on the bench, but Esmail’s deft touch with the blend of reality and fantasy remains as engrossing as ever.

More often than not, Mr. Robot is not a show which invites you to buy in. It’s standoffish, reticent, only willing to make you care when prodded to do so, and even then it will resist. Yet if you are willing to engage, willing to challenge yourself, it’s some of the most fascinating television happening right now.

The first episode is riveting, driven by cinema-caliber direction from Niels Arden Oplev, a razor-sharp script from Sam Esmail and a fantastic performance from Rami Malek.

The summer's most wildly original new series. [27 Jul - 9 Aug 2015, p.12]