Most critics like John Adams, and the praise gathers around the same two things. Paul Giamatti’s irascible, neurotic Adams and Laura Linney’s Abigail are singled out in nearly every review, usually for the way they work together, and Tom Hooper’s insistence on period detail, from muddy streets to the way people spoke, is credited with keeping the series honest rather than romantic. One or two reviews also note that it treats the founding as an uncertain experiment rather than a settled triumph, and find that refreshing.
The reservations are about shape and pace. More than one critic finds it shapeless in places, and Collider argues that the later episodes on the presidency and retirement are slower than the strong early ones. Variety is the clearest dissenter, calling the series reverential and self-important, sparking to life only sporadically. The spread is moderate: nobody dislikes it, but not everyone is convinced it earns its length.