What The Reviews Have To Say About Netflix's Surprise New Show 'The OA' 
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​Earlier this week, Netflix dropped a trailer for a previously unannounced show, the mysterious — and, frankly, fantastic-looking — The OA. The show is live on Netflix as of today, Friday December 16th. 

So does The OA — which follows the strange story of Brit Marling's Praire, who disappears for 7 years and returns with her former blindness cured — live up to the promise of the trailer? Should you binge it this weekend? Here's what the reviews are saying:

Critics Are Split: A Weird, Compelling Watch Vs. Too Weird And Twisty To Be Worth It

[T]his year of exceptional TV has managed to deliver one more unexpected gift. The OA… is that gift, and it is extraordinary… The whole experience is so absorbing that I now regret having made my top TV shows of 2016 list so early in December. The OA belongs, if not in my top ten, then certainly highly ranked among the honorable mentions.

[Vulture


Once in a while, weird is exactly the way to go — and that's what brings me (elliptically, weirdly) to this review of Netflix's "The OA," a compellingly strange, eight-episode psychological thriller that the streaming service has more or less dropped on us without much advance notice.

[Washington Post


Netflix describes "The OA" as "a Russian nesting doll of a story." I'd call it a beautifully painted eggshell, and I can't recommend spending the seven-plus hours it takes to crack it and get to the hollow center.

[New York Times] 

More 'Westworld' Than 'Stranger Things 2.0'

The OA, which, like the similarly science fiction-infused Stranger Things, deals in secrets and surprises, although the two shows are otherwise very different. The first season of Stranger Things was a deliberate throwback that paid obvious homage to the films of John Carpenter and Steven Spielberg and the books of Stephen King, among many other influences. While Marling and Batmanglij could be accused of magpie-ing a couple of the show's twists from other sources, for the most part, The OA very much inhabits its own world.

[Entertainment Weekly] 


In that maddening regard at least, the show has more in common with HBO's Westworld than Stranger Things. It's at its best when grounded in ordinary, human stories about loss, alternative families, and the pain of growing up—though these threads are often sidelined in favor of the fantastical promise of that central mystery. That's a shame; authentic human relationships, it turns out, make for better TV than abstract meditations on the metaphysical or supernatural. (We watched Stranger Things for the kids, not the Demogorgon.)

[The Daily Beast] 

And if you couldn't get into Stranger ThingsThe OA might be for you:

The OA is better than Stranger, but mind you, that's coming from someone who thinks Stranger Things is overrated.

[Yahoo]


Some Of The Twists Can Be Hard To Swallow

Viewers are likely to suspect that the ideas at the center of The OA are very intelligent, but the actions driving the plot are each dumber and more illogical than the next. There's a limit to how many times you can make me (and probably other viewers) go, "Oh come on. What sense does THAT make?" before the contract between creator and audience is severed and in a show this driven by mystery, the contract is essential.

[The Hollywood Reporter

Thankfully, It Avoids The 'Netflix Bloat'

A common criticism of Netflix's original series is that they are unnecessarily padded and bloated; the Marvel series — Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage — all fell victim. On the flip side, the eight-episode season of Stranger Things drew praise for the keeping things brief; The OA also clocks in at 8 episodes:

While plenty of non-traditional TV shows are guilty of padding episodes just because, The OA uses the format to its advantage. The structure of the first episode, in particular, is set up like a typical TV drama, until it isn't. And while most installments stick to an hour, give or take, one of the later installments is just 30 minutes–the perfect length for that particular chapter of the story.

[IGN] 

TL;DR

The OA" is fascinating and adventurous, both with formal limitations like episode runtime and narrative experimentation…Its earnestness will speak to a lot of viewers, and the unfurling mystery will speak to more. But "The OA" is offering a story that cannot be thought about too deeply without falling quickly to pieces… As an exercise in vision, "The OA" is exciting. As that other thing — a television show — it's an especially cryptic attempt to say very little of consequence.

[Variety] 

Watch The Trailer

 

<p>Dan Fallon is Digg's Editor in Chief.&nbsp;</p>

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