USA premieres Satisfaction—executive produced and created by Sean Jablonski—on Thursday, July 17 at 10 p.m. ET. The following are reviews from TV critics around the web, compiled by B&C.
"As for Satisfaction, it’s hard to know exactly where to begin, which is interesting from a narrative perspective and challenging from a marketing one. Neil Truman (Matt Passmore) is a successful businessman with a beautiful wife, Grace (Stephanie Szostak), and a teenage daughter. But he’s also bored and miserable, lamenting in voiceover that, after 18 years of marriage, 'I need to start figuring out what the hell is wrong with me.'”
—Brian Lowry, Variety
"Satisfaction's premise is much darker and more complicated than marketing for the series would have viewers believe. And unlike FX's new series Married, the two leads want to actively improve their relationship, and do seem to genuinely love each other. The irony is, of course, that it's their lying and cheating that is bringing them closer together. The question for Satisfaction, though, is how the show will sustain this over the course of multiple seasons."
—Allison Keene, The Hollywood Reporter
"As of right now, Satisfaction is actually suspenseful—leaving the audience unsure if its protagonists will embrace their better natures or succumb to their special version of suburban ennui. And though some of that suspense is a result of some messy decision-making, those types of messes look a lot like life."
—Sonia Saraiya, AV Club
"Satisfaction is not, however, a modern male version of The Happy Hooker. At its best, it's a well-acted, surprisingly clear-eyed look at the inconsistent relationship between passion and enduring love, and the innovative ways in which people bend their own rules to accommodate their need for pleasure."
—Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times
"USA's Satisfaction is, as the title suggests, casting a much wider net. It's about the politics of marriage, and about what happens when the fantasy of marriage gives way to reality, but it's also about a more general sort of dissatisfaction 'with the American dream.'"
—Matt Zoller Seitz, Vulture
