This past Sunday, March 15th, Battle Creek premiered its third episode on CBS, which means critics have had plenty of time to digest the not-so-buddy-cop dramedy as part of the Sunday night lineup at 10pm EST.
Survey Says? It’s pretty good! Metacritic, the web’s favorite criticism aggregator (after Twitter of course) gives the show a robust score of 73 with 25 positive reviews and 4 mixed.
The consensus: Critics applaud the acting performances of leading men Josh Duhamel and Dean Winters and appreciate the show’s departure from the well worn treads of CBS procedural predecessors CSI and NCIS. Strengths also include a light-hearted tone and “real” story lines, while the show’s weakness lies in occasionally being “too coy or sappy”.
User reviews on the Metacritic site echo these sentiments, with one user noting that the show has gotten better with every episode, a trend that could bode well for the show. Rotten Tomatoes also has rated the show as 95% fresh, tying Tina Fey’s Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt as the top score for new shows. It’s worth noting that the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan, has had success with atypical shows that start a little slowly… Ok, Breaking Bad is only one show and totally different, but you get the point.
