Critic Reviews

It’s part journalism drama, part Sex and the City-style female bonding comedy with sex and romance; it’s equally interested in being both things at once, to the best of its ability, and damned if it doesn’t pull it off more often than you’d think.

Not only does The Bold Type merit those comparisons to Sex and the City and Younger], it courts them with intelligence and feeling. ... What puts everything across, even more than the likable performances and efficient storytelling, is the series’ understated authority. Without relinquishing the escapist pleasures that the audience wants, it convinces you that the people who make The Bold Type are grounding the story in lived reality, not just secondhand research.

The second-season storylines of The Bold Type cloak the brutal realities as well as subtler thorns concerning identity in the professional world in oh-so-stunning glamour. Kat, Jane and Sutton conspire and confide in each other in closets, yes, but the problems they discuss aren’t insubstantial. ... It’s inspiring as well as massive entertaining to see these series claim fashion, and critique it, in ways their predecessors did not dare to.

Thankfully, The Bold Type, with its earnest story lines and thoughtful touches, remains a delight to watch.

As it stands now, Tiny Jane’s arc is a glaring sour note in an otherwise impossible confection: A heart-on-its-sleeve, good-for-you affair that’s also a glossy, giddy comic workplace drama. There may be the odd off issue, but we’re still ready to renew our subscription.

It’s fun, if this type of fun is your cup of tea. ... Kat especially makes for a charming, bold character--and the chemistry between the girls is neither saccharine nor unbelievable. It doesn’t have the streak of darkness that Freeform’s flagship “Pretty Little Liars” does. But The Bold Type makes up for it with a lot of go-girl vim that would make Helen Gurley Brown proud.

I came to this show to hoot at the motifs of its subgenre--the sham glamour of photo shoots, the cornball lines lobbed at pitch meetings--and stayed for its amiable exploration of self-discovery. The uplift of The Bold Type is disarming.

That’s the part that The Bold Type excels at, offering modern takes that the young women of The Best Of Everything’s Pendant Publishing could never have imagined. (Anvil-like, Scarlet’s publishing corporation is called Steinem.) They’re almost enough to surpass the sometimes cloyingly sweet nature of the unrealistic trio at the show’s center.

The series hikes through that strange territory where objectification and empowerment meet and are rebranded as modern feminism. ... The charm of The Bold Type is in the way it illustrates the role that these magazines play in the modern woman’s life, for better or worse.

There is a lot here--no question. But if Watson can put a little more distance between Scarlet magazine and Sleeping Beauty’s castle, the show would more effectively reach its potential. As it is, The Bold Type isn’t, but it could be.