Critical reception The first season has been met with generally favorable reviews, with a collective score of 8.3/10 from 37,268 users on
IMDb and 65/100 from 20 media reviews on
Metacritic. Dorothy Rabinowitz of
The Wall Street Journal praised the series, writing that "The arrival of one pure and unadulterated drama about a passion as old as man is something to celebrate. That's particularly true when that drama is as spellbinding in its satisfyingly gaudy way, as
Revenge turns out to be", whilst awarding particular praise to Van Camp for a "beguiling and entirely chilling study in revenge lust." Writing for
The New York Times, Alessandra Stanley compared the series favorably with
Gossip Girl, concluding that it has "just enough campy suspense to be enjoyable."
Episode 5 of the series received particular acclaim, with C. Orlando of
TV Fanatic writing that "
Revenge took things to a whole new level this week", and noting with reference to the set-up of David Clarke that "Victoria seems the only one with a conscience".
BuddyTV ranked
Revenge #3 on its list of 2011's best new TV shows.
Yahoo! TV also mentioned the series among the top television programs of 2011. The series made the covers of
Parade,
Entertainment Weekly and
TV Guide, and was featured in
Rolling Stone,
Vanity Fair,
Vogue,
People,
Us Weekly,
Cosmopolitan,
Seventeen, and
Teen Vogue magazine. The season finale "Reckoning" was met with critical acclaim by fans and critics as well, calling the episode "the best season finale of 2012".
Ratings The pilot episode scored a 3.3
Nielsen rating in the 18–49 age demographic and 10.02 million viewers, winning the 10 pm hour time slot against
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. It was reported that
Revenge is the highest rated television series in the hour for ABC since
Lost. On October 22, 2011, it was reported that
Revenge regularly won its hour in the 18–34 and 18–49 age demographics ahead of
CSI and
Law & Order: SVU. After a nearly two-month hiatus since February 29, 2012,
Revenge returned on April 18, 2012, at No. 1 in the Nielsen ratings and won its timeslot against every other television network with a first-place finish among Total Viewers, Adults 18–49 and Adults 25–54.
Revenge won over an original episode of NBC's
Law & Order: SVU in Total Viewers (+33%), Adults 18–49 (+53%) and Adults 25–54 (+45%) and generated big year-to-year time-period gains in Total Viewers (+81%), Adults 18–49 (+35%) and Adults 25–54 (+38%), rising over first-run programming on the same night last year. The April 18, 2012, episode attracted ABC's largest audience to the hour since the middle of
February sweeps on February 15, 2012. On April 25, 2012,
Revenge won its timeslot for the second consecutive week when the episode rated at No. 1 in the Nielsen ratings among Total Viewers, Adults 18–49, Adults 18–34, and Adults 25–54.
Revenge is ABC’s highest-rated series overall in Wednesday’s 10 p.m. hour in more than 4 years since
Lost during the 2006–07 television season. == Ratings ==