This week, The New York Times commends The Little Drummer Girl, while Michael Shannon talks to Entertainment Weekly about playing a spymaster. Plus, Florence Pugh speaks with Vanity Fair. Read on for more:

• The Little Drummer Girl is "a superior entertainment, beautifully made and engrossing throughout," according to The New York Times review.

• Talking to Entertainment Weekly about playing a spy, Martin Kurtz, Michael Shannon says, "It seemed like a big challenge to me because it’s very far away from my own life experience. I have not done or seen any of the things that Kurtz has done or seen..."

• "What is beautiful about Charlie is that she’s actually quite normal. We’re so used to watching these spectacular, fantastic characters on-screen do marvelous things. So it’s quite refreshing to see a normal take on such a scary world," Florence Pugh says to Vanity Fair.

• Simon Cornwell tells the Los Angeles Times why The Little Drummer Girl was adapted: "Following The Night Manager, we were looking for something that shared the same sense of ambition, of scale."

• Interviewed by The New York Times about The Little Drummer Girl's palate, Park Chan-wook says, "I wanted to stay away from the dull, gloomy colors you would conjure up when thinking about the espionage genre. This is a story about a civilian woman, an actress, and I wanted that vitality and life in the visual landscape."

• Florence Pugh speaks with W Magazine about shooting on the Acropolis: "It’s such a bizarre thing to know about a place, to learn about a place, and then, to be the only people in this historic place. It was just us there. Fifty of us, roaming these old artifacts."

• The Boston Globe commends The Little Drummer Girl, which "proves to be a triumph of meticulous mise en scène that perfectly complements the mazelike story with which it’s interwoven."

• NPR characterizes The Little Drummer Girl as "one of the year's most tense and well-acted TV thrillers."

• A.V. Club characterizes The Little Drummer Girl "a lavish example of the ’70s as period—not kitsch, not nostalgia, but a true period piece."

• The Little Drummer Girl "brims with style and intrigue—and ranks among the best espionage TV dramas in recent memory," The Daily Beast applauds.

• The Ringer says Park Chan-wook "does an excellent job telling a complex story, but his facility with the interiority of [John] le Carré’s work is what’s staggering. Because that, ultimately, is what makes the source material timeless."

• Quartzy observes, "The Little Drummer Girl—a labyrinthine, globe-trotting tale of espionage that takes place during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the 1970s, is the kind of slow-burning but enchanting story that event TV was made for."

• Ahead of the show's premiere, Indie Wire applauds the cast, which "makes each of the six episodes all the better, including an aptly lived-in turn from [Florence] Pugh and one hell of a blustery accent from Michael Shannon, while European vistas burst with vibrancy and detail."

• Collider.com commends Florence Pugh, "who really carries the miniseries with her boldness and charm, fully commanding the screen and giving a deeply natural and genuine performance as an amateur spy caught between two worlds."

• The Plain Dealer praises Park Chan-wook, who takes a "methodically constructed foundation of exposition, climbing to breathtaking heights from which his gifted star, Florence Pugh, can soar her way toward a near-certain Emmy nomination. This is quite a showcase role for Pugh, and she makes the most of it."

The Little Drummer Girl premieres Monday, November 19 9/8c. For more on all the latest The Little Drummer Girl news, sign up for the Insiders Club.