“The Mosquito Coast” is stronger in its unpredictable plotting than its dialogue, and its momentum is remarkable. ... It feels like fans of the work of Vince Gilligan, and “Ozark” will take to this the most, although “The Mosquito Coast” is arguably stronger in its first season than that Netflix drama was in its freshman outing.

Imperfect, often entertaining, unrecognizable from book or movie.

The Mosquito Coast mostly left me impatient for the show it’s eventually going to be, rather than the one it is at the moment.

Aside from Theroux, it’s one of those shows where nothing is really bad, but nothing is quite spectacular either. It’s slickly made and the acting is fine… even though, unlike the resplendent cast from The Leftovers, everyone here pales to Theroux.

It shares some themes with the novel. But meaning is obscured by action as the family jumps from frying pan to frying pan to frying pan in an attempt to forestall the fire. “The Mosquito Coast” works best when you just follow along with the running and don’t think too hard about the rest, but the running itself becomes tedious after awhile.

The lack of real, destructive danger for this dual expedition and chase isn’t just a tedious factor about the show—it’s plainly uninvolving, like watching an invincible superhero prevail without the viewer knowing their true weakness. In its place, “The Mosquito Coast” constantly teases a mystery about what father and mother did in the past, but that also becomes tedious, a dangling carrot to get the story from one overlong episode to the next.

I found the series to be somewhat unmoored, lacking the subtexts of the original source material. Here it’s all about the violence, “MacGyver” ish escapes. It’s also jumpy and disjointed.

Thought this was pretty good. Only 2 episodes so far. But I'm excited to see where the story leads.

Metacritic deleted my post again. Kiddie gloves from on now. We don't want to hurt the feelings of those gentle Quixotic woke souls, do we? Professional critics don't like this show because it doesn't have any point. Any message. Unlike its eccentric ultra romantic protagonist. It initially pretends to espouse his rebellious bent cajoling middle-class viewers in their middle-age crisis but instead cleverly pokes fun at them for believing in this escapism. It's a pure exercise in style, and it succeeds there. The cinematorgaphy and photography are as good as anything on TV. Some of the shots are really beautiful. And this deserves far more accolades than all these unbearably cliché and predictable woke shows churned by HBO and consorts. Kudos to the Theroux family.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]