Critic Reviews

[AnnaSophia Robb is] compelling, and the show has a sweetly corny charm. [18 Jan 2013, p.71]

The new series succeeds on its own nostalgic terms.

The CW's attempt to capture the magic of "Sex and the City" in a prequel, set in 1984, could have gone very wrong. But The Carrie Diaries is surprisingly right.

Pleasant surprise, The Carrie Diaries's premiere episode is a nimble and entertaining trip back to Carrie Bradshaw's high school years.

This is a different series, one whose good start has to do with its capacity to be affecting, which it is in its picture of loss and longing--a sense this young Carrie projects persuasively.

The situations are stock--John Hughes wrote this playbook pretty thoroughly--and the dialogue does not exactly crackle. But it is all well-staged and believably played and at times it becomes quite lyrical and, even, moving.

Unlike the teenagers on the show it replaces on the CW schedule, "Gossip Girl," the characters on The Carrie Diaries are neither disturbingly precocious nor voracious, instead working a welcome John Hughes vibe.

They are real people with plausible emotions. And in the hands of Josh Schwartz (Gossip Girl, The O.C.), Amy Harris (Gossip Girl), Bushnell and two other executive producers from the CW's Hart of Dixie, the storytelling has a chance to be handled maturely.

It's a step above the typical CW soap, and worth penciling in an appointment in your own TV diary.

Through its first three episodes, The Carrie Diaries works quite well as a coming-of-age story, thanks in no small part to Robb's winning performance and a pretty solid cast of young actors around her.