User Reviews

This was, overall, a nice watch. Well acted and well written and I'm always a sucker for well designed and appointed period pieces. Julia has enough of the elements to remind me of the actual historical figure she's playing and I bet, coming from Georgia, she's familiar with the type. It feels like it.

But they make a key mistake I have trouble brushing away and, honestly, I don't want to: they whitewash the unpleasant parts of the woman this is about, who had views ranging from unpleasant to outright bigoted that she was just as open and loud about. By rewriting, ignoring, and washing away those parts of her we're denied the honest, complicated, powerful portrait of a flawed woman of her time who did such an important and ultimately honorable thing.

There's no reason to make her a hero to the point when people go to research her they are surprised and put off. The kind of complicated character we're talking about is pure awards-bait for actors and writers. Think of Mare of Easttown, for example, Ray Donovan, even Archie Bunker. A character does not need to be all good or all bad or purely likeable to be compelling and even respectable for the good things they did do. They really missed the boat on that part.

What has grabed me by the collar, in this series, is that I find myself wanting, wishing, needing for the plot to be different for the outcome, the fate, of Martha Mitchell. She saw the truth but her husband was too corrupt, too much into the game, too controling to let her speak. And she was too firmly imbeded into his talons to see a way out.

If what I have seen is all true . . . How sad for our nation! Politics is not for honest people. And if the Nixon administration was this psychologically sick then the situation has only become worse.

Some scenes are very brutal - both psychologically and physically.

It's very well written, exceptional acting, makeup is incredible especially on Sean Penn and the cinematography is beautiful! Gaslit is intriguing even gets better and intense; barely boring at all. I love that Sam Esmail is a producer he's masterful at his craft so is director Matt Ross I've enjoyed his acting. Hopefully overtime the series gets appreciated more I think it deserves higher than 6.8! To me it's one of the most enjoyable political stories out there.

So far so good but big important question: where are John Dean's big hornrimmed glasses?? I am old enough to have been a young adult during this pivotal time in history. What is super ironic to me is how the very "scandalous " events that took down an administration and changed political history back in 1974 are in current times not worthy of even a second thought. It's all pretty much how it's done these days. God help us, we are living in a sad and very scary era 😳

The ads got me and I subscribed to Starz just to see this. How could a cast like this be bad? Well, it can't. I am really happy to say it's off to a great start. The cast is awesome and Martha Mitchell deserved better than she got. I love the photography and the gratuitous nudity. I also like the TV shots. Go Martha. Good luck. Hope it's a big success. This cast can't fail. So far it has a 5.1 rating. Don't believe it. If you don't like this, you just don't get it.

So far the first episode is brilliant! Julia Roberts and Sean Penn the perfect picks for their roles. Julia and Sean both award winning performances. All the acting is superb. The writing is spot on. Let's hope all the future episodes are as spectacular as the first!

"Gaslit" has a high-quality cast and production values, capturing the look and mood of the early '70s. But the tone is off-putting. Many scenes are played as broad farce, as if most of the key figures in the Watergate scandal were buffoons. These were corrupt people who made terrible blunders, but they were not all a bunch of clowns.

I think Sean Penn is very good as John Mitchell, but Julia Roberts could have put more a little more energy into her portrayal of Martha Mitchell, who was very flamboyant, colorful and opinionated. Dan Stevens as John Dean is a weak spot. He makes Dean seem very silly and clueless, and looks too hipster. These were Republicans! "Gaslit" explores an interesting episode in American political history, and includes many key facts, but the tone makes it seem a bit too much like a caricature.

Watching Julia Roberts not intentionally play Julia Roberts turns out to be quite refreshing now that she appears to be evolving into more of a character actress. She doesn't resemble the real Martha Mitchell except in conveying her outsized personality in this intriguing account of the Watergate break-in and the detrimental ramifications on the Nixon administration. Director Matt Ross appears to take cues from the Real Housewives in his dramatic treatment as cartoonish moments were mixed in effectively with the hidden events and conversations that really did occur. Under layers of latex, Sean Penn makes for an appropriately coiled John Mitchell, while Dan Steele looks to be on hyperdrive as John Dean. More entertaining than I expected, especially when the fallout gains momentum toward the end of episode 2.

The only people being Gaslit are the audience.

Either no one researched it before writing the show or no one cared for the real details. HONESTLY. The show just seems like it was created so that writers could try to show how clever they were with ridiculously witty try-hard) dialogue.

I have been obsessed with Watergate since I was very young. I remember seeing Nixon on tv when I was 6 & sitting at my grandmother's house while the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities was broadcast daily on PBS. Later in 7th grade I did a book report on it and wrote a 10. Page poem of it for my English class. (Yes, I was that weird geeky kid!) - Now that we have the internet, those very congressional hearings are available to watch on the Library of Congress site. Needless to say, I have watched every hour of testimony multiple times and will admit that, while others may drift off to sleep while listening to music or audiobooks, I listen to the testimony to fall asleep.

One of my 'comfort movies' is "All The President's Men" and I've a hard cover version of the testimony published as " Special Prosecutor and Watergate Grand Jury Legislation. Hearings, Ninety-third Congress, First Session on H. J. Res. 784". - It's obviously still relevant, Hollywood & the media still write about it.

Among the witnesses are; two of the plain cloths cops who responded to the Watergate call, Jim McCord, Dean, Butterfield, Halderman, Segretti, Magruder, Ehrlichman & the rest of the cast of characters.

The testimony was extensive & the cross examinations exhaustive. So It boggles my mind how they changed facts & detailed conversations to weave together this mediocre soap opera laced with boringly irrelevant relationship drama.

Jim McCord is characterized as an idiot who knows nothing about bugging or espionage when in fact he was a former FBI agent and an expert in physical security & electronic devices at the CIA.

There are hours of Jack Caufield's testimony related to the the initial revelation that men who gave false names were reported to have been arrested at Watergate. - All of it left out.

So so much more is just wrong or missing. It makes it unwatchable.

I just watched the first episode. Stellar cast, great direction, wardrobe and sets are first rate and the writing is solid . Will definatly watch the entire series.

I just watched the first episode again without distractions and this is really an exceptional T. V. offering. The production quality is amazing and again the cast is stellar.

Good show about what happened, showing the facts and the fumbling. Shea Whigham easily steals the show, playing a psycho so well that he's terrifying. He deserves an Emmy win for this one for sure.

My Review- Gaslit Streaming on Stan

My Rating 8/10 for the series 10/10 for Julia Roberts performance as Martha Mitchell

Not being American I didn't really know anything about Martha Mitchell even though many movies and television dramas concerning the Nixon era and it's spectacular conclusion as a result of The Watergate wiretapping Scandal which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon have been produced over the years.

Great movies like All the President's Men (1976) The Final Days (1989) Nixon (1995) Frost Nixon (2008) and The Post (2017) .

Why I mention movies is that this eight part Tele drama while being very interesting with a story that primarily concerns Martha wife of John Mitchell the 67th Attorney General of the United States who advocated the use of wiretapping without court orders would I think have made a wonderful feature movie.

With two brilliant performances from Julia Roberts as Martha and an unrecognisable Sean Penn as John N. Mitchell in two of their finest career defining roles .

Julia as the outspoken Martha Washington who wasn't afraid to tell the world about the deception ,lies and the scapegoating of the Nixon Administration.

The fashionable term used today to gaslight is a perfect title for this series as Martha Washington was definitely a victim of gaslighting- defined as referring to a specific type of manipulation where the manipulator is trying to get someone else (or a group of people) to question their own reality, memory or perceptions. And it's always a serious problem, according to psychologists.

Martha was certainly abused physically and mentally especially by her husband which led to substance abuse and her loss of any credibility or reputation.

The harrowing somewhat over the top episode 7 titled Year of the Rat is very powerful .It takes place as all hell breaks loose between Martha and John plus we witness the despicable Gordon Liddy going insane in his solidarity confinement.

Another fine performance in Gaslit from British actor Dan Stevens who portrays John Dean who served as White House Counsel under Nixon and was involved in The Watergate cover up. It's hard to imagine Dan Stevens as the young Matthew in series 1 of Downton Abbey.

Gaslit is a very interesting story based on the podcast Slow Burn by Leon Neyfakh.

If they made a series like this on the Trump administration they'd call it fake news and half the Americans wouldn't believe it. Thoroughly enjoyable and the cast was first rate.

This series is a new comically tragic take on the demise of Nixon during Watergate. Professional reviewers are calling it disjointed and confusing. I found it to be an incredible satire. If readers feel that Woodward and Bernstein's book went too deep in suggesting that Nixon's lap dogs were shadowy masterminds and that this version all involved were just incompetent idiots on a cartoon level, then Gaslit hits all the marks.

The cast especially Julia Roberts, Sean Penn, and Shea Whigham who plays G. Gordon Liddy are all Emmy-worthy.

I am sure that one day some clever writer, director, or producer will make a satire on the current 45 drama so one day we can all laugh at him, his family, and his cronies.

After watching two episodes, it's clear that the guys are having fun letting loose with the scumbaggery of these men (especially Sean Penn as John Mitchell).

But in an attempt to make the women more self-possessed victims, Roberts underplays the very colorful Martha Mitchell (with a half-hearted Southern accent), and Mo Dean is played as strong and smart (while she actually spoke with a little girl voice and was quite dim).

There is very little dramatic tension and no consistent point of view. Episode one is from John Dean's point of view and episode two is mostly from the point of view of the Watergate burglars, with Martha Mitchell (the hero? The star?) playing a supporting role on the periphery.

These things leave the viewer's mind to wander onto questions like: why the hell isn't Dan Stevens wearing John Dean's ubiquitous glasses?

The show is decent but the cast is WOW. Show is shot really well so far. For me as not US Citizen but familiar with the story it's still interesting to see but I guess some American people might think it's not accurate or intriguing enough.

It's also quite interesting to see how different these times are portrayed here and in the First Lady partly featuring This.

What's with this martha fawning anyway? Or, watergate too? This is the 2nd show I know of in the past year that has focused on martha. Both completely twisted in perspective. Both fawning over martha as if she was some kind of hero of the era. What I remember, and this is just how the media portrayed her at the time, she was known for drinking too much, and a lot of attention getting gossiping. She was a minor player in the whole affair and nobody gave her much notice except when she would slip things into the rumor mill. And then it was like reagan said, "there she goes again". She was an intentional attention getter more suited to the current internet spectrum than the 70s. It's odd though that the media has her now played as a soothsayer of her age, but she was anything but in the 70s. Entertaining sure, but so was liberace who had probably as much credibility at the time. She was though the best example of the 'martha mitchel effect'. A disturbing cultural oppression on many women in the 70s and previous decades, on many class levels. It's an entertaining show but it's hard to take anything of the show seriously after spending many, many afternoons watching the watergate hearings. There's not one actor in the series that matches the looks or persona of the watergate characters. They're too cartoonish, exaggerated, under exaggerated from their real counterparts.

But at this point YUK, I've decided this is terrible. Sleazy, sordid - no information here, just showing us the worst behavior of each participant. I thought I'd learn something about Martha Mitchell but all I know is she was thrown under the bus by her husband and did a lot of drinking and drugs. The downward spiral of Gordy Liddy in prison was the worst. What's the point of this thing?? If you REALLY want to learn the facts about Watergate check out CNN's 4-part documentary "Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal." EXCELLENT.

And finally, the security guard at the Watergate Hotel, Frank Willa, gets the credit he deserves for exposing the stupid hustle of Nixon's paranoid re-election campaign.

Just watchers the first episode. Julia Robert is great as Martha Mitchell. Sean Penn is inrecognizable as John Mitchell. A perfect combination of history and humor, with a dark edge.