From Alex Strachan of Canwest News Service:
- ‘Listener’ at least has some fine acting
“Listen up, now. The Listener, a new, made-in-Toronto drama series featuring Halifax native Craig Olejnik as a paramedic who can read people’s minds, is light, slight, silly summer entertainment — no more, and no less.” Read more.
From Tom Shales of the Washington Post:
- ‘Listener’ Shouldn’t Be Seen, Let Alone Heard
“”The Listener” lists, and finally tips over. Except for some appealing qualities in its young star, Craig Olejnik, the new NBC series premiering tonight is just another loopy downer about an everyday schmo who has otherworldly powers.” Read more.
From Ellen Gray of the Philadelphia Daily News:
- 2 new shows, 1 season opener are pleasant diversions
“The writers, while showing a certain lack of imagination in feeding Toby the voices of passers-by – no, it’s unlikely that woman who passes you on the street, guys, is thinking what they think she’s thinking – have at least invested their lead with a mildly intriguing backstory.” Read more.
From Daniel Fienberg of Hitfix:
- TV Review: The Listener
“The latest and perhaps least-entertaining iteration on this theme is The Listener, a Canadian production getting summer primetime real estate courtesy of NBC and premiering on Thursday, June 4.” Read more.
From Joanna Weiss of the Boston Globe:
- We’ve seen – and heard – it all before
“NBC’s The Listener a show so stunningly derivative that it feels a little bit insulting: They really think we have the bandwidth for another one of these?” Read more.
From Alan Pergament of Buffalo News:
- New series depend on the charm of leading men
“Now is the time of year that the broadcast networks often carry cheaply produced shows they don’t have much faith in, and cable believes it has its best chance of attracting viewers looking for an alternative to what’s on the network menu.” Read more.
From TV Overmind:
- Review: The Listener Pilot on CTV/NBC
“I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into from the commercials and I was right. The Listener is a less-saccharine version of The Ghost Whisperer.” Read more.
From HollywoodChicago:
- TV Review: Audiences Unlikely to Hear NBC’s ‘The Listener’
“The telepath is the lead character on NBC’s frustrating new The Listener, a show that the network is clearly burning off this summer and that I don’t need psychic powers to predict won’t be on the schedule for too long.” Read more.
From Tom Conroy of Media Life:
- ‘The Listener,’ we’ve heard it all before
“In its ongoing effort to fill primetime with the cheapest possible programming, NBC has purchased the U.S. broadcast rights to the Canadian drama series The Listener. Unfortunately, in this case the network got what it paid for.” Read more.
From Mark Perigard of the Boston Herald:
- Tele-pathetic! Keep ‘Listener’ out of sight, mind
“NBC gives us another excuse to close our borders: the Canadian import The Listener, a dumb drama that stretches a squib of a story across an hour.” Read more.