- Network: NBC
- Series Premiere Date: Jan 11, 2012
Critic Reviews
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The most puzzling thing about Are You There, Chelsea? is who exactly thought it was a good idea. Because it's not.
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The show gets by as the vodka of television comedy. It aims to have no taste.
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Whenever Chelsea Handler is on screen in the new NBC comedy Are You There, Chelsea?, in which she plays not the title character but her sister Sloan, we see the hint of the better sitcom it wants to become.
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The show is so wrapped up in moving the needle of apparently outrageous behavior that it never does anything but repeat itself.
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The smarmy and incessant innuendo is more deafening than the laugh track, and yet no matter how low it stoops, it still lacks the zing and bite of Handler's cable antics.
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A watered-down drink of a sitcom.
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Like the main character herself, the show is crude and rough around the edges, but you can see glimmers of potential.
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You may laugh, but you'll hate yourself afterward.
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The problem isn't the performers....The problem is the jokes.
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In place of dialogue, we get one-liners.
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This isn't to say Are You There, Chelsea? is completely hopeless. There are bright spots. The brightest, predictably, is Handler.
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Prepon manages to give Chelsea's raunchy lines and irritating actions--including the brush-off of that opening DUI--more zing and charm than the material merits.
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The show's just not as funny as Chelsea Handler is when she's playing Chelsea Handler.
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Chelsea doesn't do anything to make the TV version of Chelsea interesting, likable or winning.
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If it sounds a bit thrown together for sitcom's sake, it is.
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Vulgarity and lack of taste aren't the issues here as much as a deadening single-mindedness.
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If the writers relax their death grip on that formula and Handler stops choking the proceedings, Are You There, Chelsea? might be worth another look.
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A little too raw, especially in this hour.
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The show is gleefully rude in keeping with Ms. Handler's personal style, but 8:30 p.m. seems way too early for explicit sex jokes.
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Many of the plotlines are lifted (poorly) from Handler's best-sellers.
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The fictionalized Chelsea occupies that irritating middle ground where she's not likable enough to be watchable when she's just existing, and yet neutered enough that her bad behavior isn't actually all that funny.
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[Laura Prepon] doesn't have any of the original's bone-tired, hard-earned scorn. [19 Jan 2012, p.42]
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It's an awfully thin construct, and either too FX in its tawdriness or, alternately, not HBO enough in its execution.
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Everything in Chelsea seems painfully forced.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 20 out of 50
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Mixed: 9 out of 50
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Negative: 21 out of 50
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Jan 16, 2012
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Feb 3, 2012
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Apr 18, 2012