What they’re saying about Boardwalk Empire

Fans of top-flight American television have been waiting for the next big thing after The Sopranos – and last night it arrived, in the shape of Boardwalk Empire, the pilot episode directed by Martin Scorsese.

Starring Steve Buscemi, HBO's Boardwalk Empire is set in the Prohibition era of the 1920s and tells the story of Mafia corruption in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

As well as its star-studded line up, one of Boardwalk's main draws is the effort put into making the early 20th century setting authentic. Much like ABC's Mad Men it is filled with references to earlier times, so much so that the Washington Post's Hank Steuer likened it to "stepping back in time".

But does it truly measure up to The Sopranos or The Wire? Here's the pick of the critics' comments so far...
 
WHAT THEY'RE SAYING:
 
Paige Wiser, Chicago Sun-Times: "The characters are unforgettable, and the history, of course, is more entertaining than fiction. The filming of Boardwalk Empire just may be more decadent than the decadence it's celebrating. It's not TV, and it's not really HBO. It's an event, not to be missed."
 
Brian Lowry, Variety: "This is, quite simply, television at its finest, occupying a sweet spot that - for all the able competition - still remains unique to HBO: An expensive, explicit, character-driven program, tackling material no broadcast network or movie studio would touch."
 
Andrew Wallenstein, Hollywood Reporter: "The ghosts of Sopranos and Mad Men hover over Boardwalk; it's even in the former's old time slot. Beautifully rendered as the series is, there's a high-concept conflation of the two shows here in the way it marries the mob melodrama of Sopranos with Mad's period fetishism. It's a savvy programming strategy but robs Boardwalk of a certain freshness that would otherwise elevate it to the same echelon as those TV classics."
 
John Patterson, the Guardian: "Not quite the greatest piece of television ever made, as trumpeted by some American critics (that accolade may belong to episode seven of this season of Mad Men), but exceptional nonetheless in aspects large and small. And the most interesting piece of direction by Scorsese since The Departed. Perhaps episodic television, so drastically grown-up and intelligent of late, is somewhere he could flourish anew."
 
Benji Wilson, the Daily Telegraph: "The problem for Boardwalk Empire is that it comes with baggage... You watch it hoping that it will be as good as The Wire, or The Sopranos, to which it owes so much. And one episode in, of course, it can't be." ·