Sugar; Queen James

Farrell understands the assignment – the noir part anyway – and embraces the gumshoe stereotypes with gusto. There is surely no other actor alive better suited to grainy voiceovers delivered as he cruises around sun-bleached LA in a 1966 Corvette Stingray. So it’s a shame that gravity finally asserts itself and the series is dragged down into sci-fi silliness and a convoluted plot involving Sugar’s missing sister (also an alien). When it plays it straight, this neo-noir treat serves up the black stuff with style.
Ed Power, The Telegraph 

John Sugar not being human is just another way in which he’s a disconnected observer of a city where everyone’s disconnected from each other, but it does give the show another layer to its audiovisual collage: as well as the film excerpts, we can now cut to soothing shots of cerulean galaxies, while the narration has progressed from gnomic to cosmic. “Everything comes to an end,” muses Farrell, as nothing of note happens. “Sooner than you think, sometimes. From the side suns on Andromeda to the terramorphs on Paloma, everything dies.” Bogie never got lines like that.

We are lost in another luxurious Apple labyrinth, but not unhappily so. Every moment of Sugar is divine to look at, while the concept of the protagonist’s main superpowers being weary kindness and naive sweetness, despite his alien biology affording him actual superpowers, continues to bewilder and amuse. Each episode is a half-hour haze suffused with Sugar’s sad, sleepy vibe. This show could only be on Apple – it’s another world in there.
Jack Seale, The Guardian

Russell definitely has the gift, his descriptions of Hampton Court as “the world’s most exclusive nightclub” and the masque, the palace entertainment James liked best, as “a cross between a Broadway musical and a party election broadcast” being two of many occasions where the presenter amuses as he informs. In his hands, James – brittle, hot-blooded, wordy, joyful James – comes newly alive.
Jack Seale, The Guardian