Bates Motel · Season 1 · A&E
Bates Motel Season 1
Bates Motel Season 1 is a WORTH-IT, BollyMeter 7.3/10. 10 episodes on A&E from 18 March 2013.
Updated
What BollyAI Thinks
Bates Motel launched March 18, 2013 with an 82% Rotten Tomatoes score and Metacritic of 69 across 61 reviews. The contemporary Psycho prequel was met with cautious enthusiasm - the risk of the premise acknowledged, the execution largely successful. The Denver Post called it 'assured storytelling and fine performances' giving 'a worthy contemporary spin to a classic.' Vera Farmiga as Norma Bates anchored the show from its first scene; Freddie Highmore's Norman was genuinely disturbing - the show committed to depicting his deteriorating mental health without reducing him to genre cliche. Variety noted the premise at times becomes 'its own creative prison' with a 'hurry-up-and-wait attitude,' but the performances carried Season 1 past its structural unevenness.
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The Room
“Its assured storytelling and fine performances give a worthy contemporary spin to a classic.”
Denver Post
Standout Episodes
The hours worth arguing about - premieres, finales, and the turning points. BollyAI reads the room episode by episode.
- E1First You Dream, Then You Die7.5
Norma and Norman Bates arrive in White Pine Bay and the motel's dark history immediately intrudes. The show establishes its contemporary-prequel register with impressive efficiency - Vera Farmiga's Norma is both terrifying and sympathetic from her first scene.
The moment: The first scene between Norma and Norman that establishes their co-dependent dynamic as something far more volatile than affection.