Snowfall: Season 1

"It feels, in the early going at least, that the ambition is too much. Because it's not just those three main players that Snowfall focuses on, but myriad people around each of them. By telling bits of the story involving those additional characters, Snowfall never seems to get around to the actual story of crack."

"Snowfall is a better written show than it is a visual show, a grand, tragic story that is admirably inclusive but struggles to reach a personal level."

"All of “Snowfall’s” raw material is good, and the show will likely improve as all three storylines develop emotionally grounded layers."

"The result is a show that feels surprisingly broad—it’s not just a kid getting in over his head, it’s an entire country about to be forever altered by the drug trade."

"As a kind of successor to The Wire and Justified—the latter a former FX series—Snowfall mostly delivers on its promise. But it also benefits from having more room to breathe than most freshman dramas."

"At its best, Snowfall illustrates the unintended consequences and collateral damage associated with drugs -- characters enter into new alliances at their peril -- while revisiting the CIA's role and shady dealings to advance its foreign-policy objectives."

"The most striking thing about Snowfall, though, is that it never seems less exciting, less special, than when it’s doing the standard Scorsese/Tarantino thing and putting groups of treacherous men (and a few women) at cross purposes, then watching them threaten and bluff each other until the guns come out (or don’t)."

"Snowfall is lean, mean and precise. Though it fictionalizes and chronicles a depressing (and violent) American crisis, it belongs on everyone’s must-watch list this summer."