Paul Reiser has made a career out of playing whiny people I want to kick in the ribs, from Diner to Aliens to “Mad About You.” Now he’s taking a break from defending Jay Leno to star in “The Paul Reiser Show,” a colorless attempt to copy “Curb Your Enthusiasm” so wholly devoid of humor that I gritted my teeth through the six minutes I forced myself to watch. Reiser, playing a version of himself, whines about being rich, famous, and having accomplished everything he ever wanted in life. “So now what do I do now?” he asks. I dunno, but he can start by shutting his f*cking face while I’m grinding out a living on this outdated laptop.
Obviously, I have an ax to grind. My opinion is too colored with hatred of Reiser to give his show a fair shake. So let’s see what other reviewers had to say about “The Paul Reiser Show.”
The Paul Reiser Show was such an unfunny, odd fit, nestled between Community and The Office on Thursday night, you had to wonder what NBC was thinking, or if it was thinking at all. [Ken Tucker, EW]
A shoddy replica. [Matthew Gilbert, Boston Globe]
How this sitcom is going to relate to anyone who hasn’t been a sitcom star, then made enough money to not work is beyond the realm of imagination. [Tim Goodman, The Hollywood Reporter]
Oddly empty, like a bunch of junior high kids putting on a Tennessee Williams play with all of the suggestive bits chopped out. [A.V. Club (Grade: D+)]
More scathing quotes below. I spent half the night collecting them — it was a labor of love.
“It’s strange to see Reiser attempt to meld the very specific sensibilities of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ with those of a generic comedy about suburban life, and to say that the hybrid isn’t viable is putting it mildly… It’s predictable, bland and feels like something you’ve seen before. [Maureen Ryan, TV Squad]
As imperfect as it was, Perfect Couples was a lot better than this. [EW]
This was probably not the best moment to debut a show about an out-of-work actor still living in a neighborhood resembling Brentwood who can afford to turn down a job… Much of the action arises from Reiser’s inability to manage his mouth, but where David boldly owns the dark and limitless empire of his self-absorption, Reiser still wants to be the happily married Dad who may say the wrong thing once in a while but whose heart is still in the right place. A guy who’s just like you, only much richer with his own show. [Mary McNamara, LA Times]
Everything about it is half-hearted. [Alan Sepinwall, HitFix]
“The Paul Reiser Show” is not nearly as sharp, over-the-top, outrageous or inventive as David’s “Curb.” Instead, it’s merely annoying. And, as a reminder of a fun show long gone, it has the added burden of being sort of sad. [Joanna Ostrow, The Denver Post]
[Reiser’s] kvetching and anxiety don’t trigger laughs or comic cringing so much as so-what shrugs… Maybe [Larry] David knew what he was doing by urging Reiser to imitate him. He only looks better by comparison. [Boston Globe]
The second episode… goes off the tracks almost immediately. Getting to the end of the half-hour felt like something that merited a medal. Finding out that NBC had sent an additional two episodes was like discovering a cruel plot to hurt people unnecessarily. [THR]
Though the show is laughtrack-less, its visual template is so bright, and the banter between Paul and wife Claire so familiar in its rhythms, that we might as well be watching a traditional sitcom shot on a stage in front of a live audience… If Reiser wanted to do a traditional sitcom, he should have just done one all the way. [HitFix]
[Reiser] is outsmarted by cute kids and cats. [A.V. Club]
A bit about an unfunny comedy script, running through a series of failed jokes, is excruciating. [Denver Post]
So far, the only thing it has going for it is that it kicked “Perfect Couples” off the air.” [TV Squad]
Stale and dated. [Boston Herald, which gave the show a D+]
It’s a measure of how bad this show is that it makes a performers as good as Ben Shenkman and Andrew Daly only slightly less irritating than Reiser himself. [EW]
If Reiser was going for a Curb feel, he’s missed it by a mile. Paul Reiser is far more closely related — one might say nearly identical — to The Bernie Mac Show, which ran on Fox for five seasons. If you’re looking for a lot of laughs, check that one out. If you’re looking for a series that never feels more than an idea scribbled on a napkin, stick with Reiser. [THR]
It’s hard to imagine a worse idea than The Paul Reiser Show, creating a new void to replace the void that was Perfect Couples. [Matt Roush, TV Guide]
The dreadful Paul Reiser Show managed to make me feel sad about two different past time periods at once. This time around, NBC is taking to star of a not-quite-as-well-loved-as-Seinfeld sitcom and trying to make its own Curb Your Enthusiasm. [James Poniewozik, TIME]
It’s not the worst sitcom of this TV season, but it’s certainly the least palatable. [A.V. Club]
This ghastly exercise in self-absorption brings us the star of Mad About You in a vanity project that might as well be titled Mad About Me. [TV Guide]
Mmmmm, that’s some good hate. It fuels my soul.
Surely, however, someone likes this show. Ehhhh… not really. I searched for some positive reviews, and the closest thing I could find to a compliment was “It takes guts to copy so blatantly” in The Philadelphia Inquirer. The San Francisco Chronicle — obviously without a real TV critic since Tim Goodman left for The Hollywood Reporter — gave the show a positive review on the grounds of “Well, at least it’s not a show about six attractive young people.” And Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times didn’t give the show a positive review, but she didn’t say anything particularly bad, either. But then, that’s kind of what Stanley does: she spews words without really saying anything, a grossly incompetent person with a job she doesn’t deserve. She’s the Paul Reiser of TV critics.