Damien (2016)

Unfortunately, the premiere is more depressing than scary, often feeling as if we're being sucked slowly into quicksand.

Not bad if it’s your thing.

Damien has moments of nicely spooky atmospherics, but it’s neither scary nor fun, and when you’re dealing with this topic and this character, you have to move in one of those two directions, or you’ll just lose the battle to the devil of tedium.

Damien the TV series is a fairly generic supernatural conspiracy thriller with elements of the police procedural, a well-populated genre.

A&E's Damien joins the franchise, offering spooky and violent moments through its first five episodes, but struggling to find the narrative momentum necessary to work as an ongoing series.

Underground is a rough watch, but it offers twists and compelling characters worth watching for viewers up to the challenge.

The early episodes are the most overly ripe. Eventually, we get used to the bad dialogue and unintentionally funny direction and performances and surrender to the fundamental mystery of who Damien is, not to mention the question of the real identities and purpose of various people around him.

At its core, though, the show feels hollow, in part because of the waffling approach to its central character.... Taken strictly on its own terms, Damien is mildly fun through these episodes, its flaws notwithstanding.