The Waterfront review roundup

Netflix’s The Waterfront was a much-anticipated series with considerable pedigree behind it. Aside from being developed by Kevin Williamson, who was well-renowned for his work on the iconic Scream horror movie series, as well as Dawson's Creek, the series also starred Holt McCallany, who’d risen to prominence thanks to his work on Netflix’s critically acclaimed Mindhunter series. Alongside him, The Waterfront starred Melissa Benoist, Jake Weary and Rafael L. Silva. 

The Netflix series, however, has had a middling critical reception compared to Mindhunter, sitting at a lukewarm 54 on Metacritic. While the show has garnered praise from outlets such as The Collider and The New York Times, it has also drawn negative comparisons to 2018’s Yellowstone by its harshest detractors. 

From the creator of Dawson’s Creek and Scream, The Waterfront centers on the fictional Buckley family and their crumbling fishing empire.

More details: https://t.co/CsuPcdY31T pic.twitter.com/1ZBueF3JyP

— Netflix Tudum (@NetflixTudum) May 29, 2025

Mindhunter’s second season sits pretty on Metacritic with a score of 85, indicating “Universal Acclaim”. The Waterfront, however, does not reach those heights. The series did garner its share of praise. In one of its more positive reviews, Collider’s Samuel R. Murrian called the series one of the year’s best shows. He praised the influences The Waterfront took from Ozark and Yellowstone and even went as far as saying that The Waterfront could be among Netflix’s flagship series if future seasons managed to build on the first season’s foundation. 

The show, from “Dawson’s Creek” creator Kevin Williamson, struggles to find a middle ground between gritty family saga and goofy CW drama.https://t.co/TxT5j4nvus

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) June 19, 2025

This sentiment, however, was not universal. The Pittsburgh Tribune’s Rob Owen was far more middling in his assessment of the show, noting a “sameness” about it, comparable to Kevin Williamson’s earlier Ransom Canyon, that rendered both series “various levels of meh”. This sentiment was shared by The Daily Beast’s Caroline Siede, who called the show “Yellowstone with seafood”, and claimed that it struggled to find a balance between being a gritty family drama, and a goofy CW series. 

TVLine’s Dave Nemetz was far more scathing in his assessment, as he called the dialogue “unforgivably dumb” and claimed that while the series tried to emulate Yellowstone and Dallas, it was far too by-the-numbers to measure up to either. With such a tepid critical response, it seems unlikely that this Netflix series will reach the levels of commercial and critical success Mindhunter once did. There is currently no confirmation of a second season. 

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