“‘Defending Jacob’: Chris Evans Can’t Rescue This Heavy-Handed Drama Series”

The lesson I learned watching Defending Jacob is that I’m not very good at reviewing TV.

Maybe that isn’t the lesson. Maybe that’s just what I felt while writing about the show, Apple TV+’s latest, and to my knowledge yet another middle of the road offering on their slate. (Translation: I haven’t heard anything good about Apple’s original programming.) But Defending Jacob drove home for me the complications and shortcomings of TV reviewing. There’s a lot that goes into a television show, and Defending Jacob has a lot of a lot. Reviewing a television show, then, is even more complicated, because I don’t know of a succinct way to boil down X episodes’ worth of content into 1000 or so words, especially when the show happens to be so underwhelming.

Anyways. You can read my full review over at The Playlist.