5.8 /10 1 Votes
3/5 Amazon Genre Comedy Written by Woody Allen Country of origin United States Director Woody Allen | 6.7/10 IMDb 44% Metacritic Created by Woody Allen Directed by Woody Allen First episode date 30 September 2016 Program creator Woody Allen | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Starring Woody Allen
Miley Cyrus
Elaine May
Rachel Brosnahan
John Magaro Cast Miley Cyrus, Woody Allen, Elaine May, Rachel Brosnahan, John Magaro Profiles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Crisis in Six Scenes is an American television mini-series written and directed by Woody Allen for Amazon Studios. Allen wrote and directed six episodes for the half-hour series, marking the first time he has done so for television. It is available exclusively on Amazon Video in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany.
Contents
The series premiered on September 30, 2016, to generally unfavorable reviews. Allen said in May 2016 that the series will consist of only one season.
Plot
The series is set in the 1960s during turbulent times in the United States. A middle class suburban family is visited by a guest (played by Miley Cyrus) who turns their household completely upside down.
Main cast
Guest stars
Development
The deal with Allen was seen as giving Amazon a possible advantage in its competition with Netflix and television networks. The series was announced within days of Amazon winning the Golden Globe Award for the comedy-drama Transparent, another original series. Allen had last written new material for television in the 1950s, when he wrote for Sid Caesar.
In a May 2015 interview, Allen said that progress on the series had been "very, very difficult" and that he had "regretted every second since I said OK". Allen has said of the series, "I don't know how I got into this. I have no ideas and I'm not sure where to begin. My guess is that Roy Price [the head of Amazon Studios] will regret this."
Casting
In January 2016, it was announced that the series would star Allen, Elaine May and Miley Cyrus, and that shooting would begin in March. In February 2016, it was announced that John Magaro and Rachel Brosnahan had joined the cast. In March 2016, Michael Rapaport, Becky Ann Baker, Margaret Ladd, Joy Behar, Rebecca Schull, David Harbour and Christine Ebersole had joined the cast of the series.
Filming
For about three weeks in early 2016, filming for the six episodes took place at 508 Scarborough Road, in Briarcliff Manor, New York.
Critical response
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the series has an approval rating of 19%, based on 43 reviews, with an average rating of 4.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Woody Allen's filmmaking skills prove a poor fit for the small screen in Crisis in Six Scenes, a talk-heavy, unfunny, and overall disengaged production buried below numerous superior offerings." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the series has a score 44 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Rodrigo Perez from The Playlist gave the series a D+ from A+ to F scale, and described it as "Hamfisted and nearly unwatchable."