The reviews are warmly positive, and the praise lands almost entirely on one man. Most critics describe Benedict Cumberbatch’s Patrick as the reason to watch: a performance that swings from slapstick to tragedy within a single scene, with at least one reviewer judging it the best work he has done. Behind him, the adaptation is credited with boiling the novels down into coherent, intelligent television, and Nicholls’ screenplay and Edward Berger’s direction are singled out for keeping the early episodes both funny and bleak.
The reservations are few and mild. Some find Patrick hard company, selfish and unpleasant for long stretches, and one or two note that the tone and pacing whip about. The spread is narrow: eleven positive notices and one mixed. The lone dissent comes from Paste, which finds the series indulgent and short on wit, the upper-class dysfunction over-familiar, and the central performance erratic rather than virtuosic. Nobody else agrees.