Anne Rice fans rejoice! AMC+’s adaptation of the Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy is finally upon us, with the new drama set to premiere January 8, with Alexandra Daddario as its lead. The actress has a loyal following, thanks in part to her role in The White Lotus’ first season and a particularly steamy scene in True Detective, and many are excited to see what the actress will bring to the part of Rowan. Those fans are in luck, because the reviews are in for Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches, adding more context to what we know about the streaming series already.
In addition to Alexandra Daddario as the neurosurgeon who learns she is the heiress to the dynasty of powerful witches, Mayfair Witches stars Harry Hamlin as the current Mayfair patriarch, Tongayi Chirisa as new character Ciprien Grieve, and Jack Huston as the shape-shifting entity Lasher. With this series coming on the heels of Interview With the Vampire — one of 2022’s best new TV shows — let’s see what the critics have to say about the newest addition to Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe.
Variety writer Daniel D’Aaddario (no relation to the actress) is left underwhelmed by the execution of Mayfair Witches, though the critic still recognizes the acting prowess of Alexandra Daddario, saying:
Daddario proves herself an able performer once again. Even as one wishes something more from the show surrounding her, she makes the part her own, projecting both intelligence and willful cluelessness, as the moment demands it. It’s she who makes Rowan feel like a rounded character, rather than an object to whom things keep on happening. And one leaves Mayfair Witches hoping for more, and better, work for a performer whose best sorcery isn’t the literal kind.
Josh Bell of CBR says the series gets off to a slow start but starts to pick up by the end of the five episodes that were made available for review. This review posits that the series might have been better suited to embrace the more soapy tendencies and moods of Anne Rice’s novels. The critic says:
Although there are some steamy sex scenes, Mayfair Witches fails to capture the doomed eroticism of Rice's novels, and its tone may be a bit too restrained. Creators Michelle Ashford (Masters of Sex) and Esta Spalding position Mayfair Witches as a prestige drama, but at heart, Rice's novels are more like a twisted soap opera. Mayfair Witches would be more entertaining if it embraced that tone, with all its lurid twists and over-the-top characters, rather than holding back.
Carly Lane of Collider says there are glimmers of hope in the first handful of episodes, and those familiar with the source material know just how wild things will likley get. And since the series has barely scratched the surface of what the books provide, it’s still too early for that critic to declare Mayfair Witches a disappointing second effort in the Immortal Universe, and she graded the series a B-, saying:
Like [Interview With the Vampire], Mayfair Witches is keen on doling out its plot slowly — but without the previous show's framing device that inherently lends itself to a trickle of information, the end pacing feels more like a gradual trudging than an intentional creeping. It may be too soon to make any definitive judgment, since several of the first season's episodes were withheld from reviewers, and a number of routes remain for the series to take in order to elevate itself from mostly entertaining to truly phenomenal television.
Linda Codega of Gizmodo, however, has some far less flowery opinions swirling around in her metaphorical cauldron, asserting there’s no real hope for Mayfair Witches, as somewhat anchored by the assertion that Alexandra Daddario lacks energy in her performance. And despite “Rowan’s exaggerated mid-flight phantom orgasm,” this critic calls the series “tragically unsexy,” saying:
At the end of five episodes, Mayfair Witches is a show without ambition or direction. It recoils from the truly taboo and horrific, resolves emotional hooks within thirty minutes of baiting them, as if afraid of the audience’s recall, and refuses to widen its scope too far beyond its main character. If the last three episodes of Mayfair Witches hope to save the series from the burning house that is AMC’s streaming cuts, it needs to start hauling skeletons out of the closet and making them pole dance. Literally nothing else could make this slow, pallid show interesting.
Not that all of the reviews out there skewed so negatively. For instance, Nicole Drum of ComicBook.com rates the series 5 out of 5, calling Mayfair Witches the best adaptation of Anne Rice’s work yet. The critic credits the co-creators for their ability to pare down what is a huge undertaking in the author’s The Witching Hour, which the first season is largely based on. She says:
It's excellent storytelling, both on the part of the source material the series draws from, but also series co-creators Esta Spalding and Michelle Ashford who find a way to take literally hundreds of pages of story and bring them to life in just a couple of hours of screen time, all while visually bringing to life the lush and vibrant world Rice put on the page.
For all of the faults that critics found, Mayfair Witches is currently garnering an 80% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes from the critics’ reviews that are available so far. That’s bound to change in one way or another, and will likely stand apart from whatever the Audience Score is when it comes into play.
Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches will debut on AMC+ on Sunday, January 8, and will enjoy a simulcast premiere at 9 p.m. that evening on AMC, BBC America, IFC, SundanceTV and WEtv. It will then be streaming on January 12 via Shudder, Sundance Now, Acorn TV, and ALLBLK.
