American Housewife

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 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 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]

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

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.

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

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.

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.

[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.

Aafter a brief foray into the dark side, Katie realizes that it’s pointless to be anything but herself, and the fun of the show comes from watching her not just discover that but also teach it to her kids.

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 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).

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.

American Housewife is a paint-by-numbers sitcom that's relentlessly stupid around the edges and deeply misguided at its center.

"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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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