Critic Reviews

Brisk and funny, warm and wonderfully oddball, Teenage Bounty Hunters is a binge everyone — except maybe Old Testament God — can get behind.

There's more than a dash of Legally Blonde and a full handful of Veronica Mars here, mixed with a steady drip of quippy reminders that girls' bodies can stink, too. It probably shouldn't work. But it comes out fully baked, ready to be binged.

This show is just as fun and irreverent as its title, but there’s actually more going on beneath that surface of snark.

Belying the simplicity of its title, Teenage Bounty Hunters gets extremely complicated as it delves into concepts like teenage purity, first-time queer experiences, and an intriguing mystery involving the girls’ mom, whose polished facade apparently hides a multitude of past sins. Fortunately, the main cast is backed by equally talented performers like Mackenzie Astin as the girls’ dad, underrated Fairly Legal alum Virginia Williams as their duplicitous mom, and Devon Hales as a venomous classmate.

As both sisters start to explore the assumptions they’ve been handed about who’s worthy of respect and how they should act on their impulses, the piecemeal approach to nabbing people who’ve skipped out on bail doesn’t quite hold the same weight. Yet in those moments when all these disparate elements do click into place, there’s more than enough onscreen energy to want to see where Blair and Sterling’s stories head next.

Between Hardison, Phillips, Fellini, some witty chit-chat, and a premise oozing with potential, the bones of Teenage Bounty Hunters are strong and sturdy. But the finished product couldn't quite figure out where to put and how to connect them. Season 1 ends expecting a Season 2, where things could improve if Teenage Bounty Hunters lives up to its title more.

“Teenage Bounty Hunters” is pretty much as good and bad as you’d expect it to be. Well, maybe a bit more bad. Which is unfortunate because the show’s young leads — Maddie Phillips and Anjelica Bette Fellini — have wonderful chemistry, batting teen nonsense, emotional eruptions and giddy observations back and forth with crisp timing.