James Kramer

For the pilot - 4 stars. I'd give it five except for seeing Reese Witherspoon playing the same perfectionist, blandly white conservative character for the umpteenth time. The pilot does have interesting conflicts, mysteries, questions of race and biases. Starting in episode 2 it goes south suddenly and disappointingly - abandons the interesting mysteries and conflicts of the pilot (especially involving the troubled daughter Izzy), and introduces a random and stunningly uninteresting story line about an abandoned Chinese baby and the peripheral character of a less than two dimensional mother who abandoned her. Bad soap. Kerry Washington looks unconvinced, unconvincing and uncomfortable throughout. I didn't read the book, so can't compare, but as a TV series it went from intriguing in the pilot to depressingly disappointing after that. Watched 3 episodes. Wish I had that time back.