American Housewife

The series still shines thanks to a terrific Mixon and her sharp-elbowed jabs at 21st-century Stepford life, a realm dominated by Fitbit-wearing, yogo-pantsed power parents. [Oct 14, 2016, p.51]

The writing in the two episodes I've seen is funnier and more pointed than the show's premise.

American Housewife isn’t this fall’s best new comedy but it’s certainly one of the better offerings.

Hopefully the pilot will move beyond weight and get to what really is intriguing about this show. Not since “Roseanne” has there been a prime-time comedy so poised to poke fun at economic class.

The “fat” stuff is way overdone, but Bader and Mixon are good. Otherwise, your watchwords are: too soon to tell.

Mixon is great, and she’ll keep me interested. But her voice-over is excessive and her weight obsession is overcooked.

American Housewife is at its best during scenes of Katie’s daily life with her nerdy husband,Greg (Diedrich Bader), who happens to adore her plus-size figure, and her three children, who prove once more that ABC (with its Disneyfied intuition about such things) has a remarkable knack for casting snarky sitcom kids.

Katy Mixon is a star. It’s honestly her intense likability that makes this show so watchable, for of all of the non-fat joke-related mistakes it makes (chiefly its Alex P. Keaton knockoff older son character).

American Housewife may be a knockoff rather than a tapestry, but it includes threads of wistfulness, paranoia and willful social deviance that will make you look twice. Or even thrice.

The inner snark is much of the appeal of the show--the ongoing soliloquy where Katie tells the truth, punctuated by Mixon’s skillful balance of eye-rolling cynicism, cheerful enthusiasm, and deep-seated worry.

All these characters manage to work, at least in a broadcast-show way. This is mostly because of Mixon’s constant narration and commentary; she’s offering a sarcastic-neurotic voiceover on her own absurd life.

At the moment, those kids feel grafted onto the story — three different containers for three different kinds of jokes. So focus on the parents, who are the hope for this show. That’s particularly true for Mixon, who is seldom off camera and yet never wears out her welcome.

Mixon’s casting would have been much more meaningful had her show more frequently let her form speak for itself. American Housewife’s star, so far, is Katie’s weight--and a number is a pretty boring premise for a story.

[Katy Mixo's] talent may be the key to buying this new comedy some patience with the audience as it figures out what it wants to be.

Once called “The Second Fattest Housewife in Westport,” the series hits the usual notes but doesn’t sing.

American Housewife so far is too busy taking offense to be much fun to watch.

Lurking somewhere in American Housewife is an incisive sitcom that can sit companionably along with ABC’s thoughtful, culturally relevant sitcoms. In a mostly encouraging sign, the second episode of American Housewife ditches the weight talk almost entirely, but it also feels softer and, like its revised title, generic. American Housewife needs to find the middle ground.

Like so many first episodes, American Housewife starts off functional, but only vaguely promising.

It could be fun once it figures out where and how to direct its snark, but at the start, it’s too haphazard to make much of an impression.

All told, Katie is a commanding presence, a social commentator with a flair for insult, a housewife with a bottomless capacity for complaint. Ms. Mixon performs commendably. What the show needs now are writers of whom the same could be said.

The pilot has some decent zingers embedded in its moral premise, and its best moments involve Bader’s staid delivery juxtaposed with Mixon’s snark. ... The pilot veers towards breaking the fourth wall and being far too preachy towards the end, though, which doesn’t serve it well.

The jokes are difficult to locate.

"Roseanne," one of television’s great comedies, made this kind of family work with sharp writing and good acting. In American Housewife, created by Sarah Dunn, the jokes are lame and no one is acting; everyone is merely mugging for the cameras, with Ms. Mixon being the worst offender.