- Network: NBC
- Series Premiere Date: Oct 2, 2014
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Critic Reviews
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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The "Funny or Die" duo makes this zesty, single-camera comedy speak to adults by letting their lead be one.
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There’s a caustic wit to Bad Judge that, with a little help, might still rise above its more shallow laughs.
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If the writers can stop laying it on so thick, maybe Walsh will find her way into the role and Bad Judge will have a better shot at entertaining and shocking us.
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Bad Judge is fine, but it’s unlikely that it’ll get the chance to be something good.
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Walsh throws herself into the part but Bad Judge so far is falling apart around her. It’s not terrible, and maybe not even a misdemeanor offense. But it’s still guilty of not being all that good.
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The premise is intriguing, but the execution fizzles, for the most part.
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The show tries (too) hard for laughs ... Walsh does what she can with the material, but by the twelfth time she utters the word "dude," her efforts fall flat.
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From Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Anne Heche comes this mostly numb comedy about a judge with a messy personal life.
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The show wallows in lowest common denominator jokes that more often than not don't land.
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Walsh, an actress who has only grown more interesting with time, is worth watching, even as the show grows slack beneath her.
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What you're left with is a show that reeks of too many cooks, and one Walsh seems ill-equipped to save.
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The original Bad Judge pilot wasn't all that funny, but a show with the guts (and the appropriate channel placement) to go full "Bad Santa" with her as the lead could work very well. Instead, Bad Judge has been noted into oblivion. She's no longer quite so bad, but she's also not anything else. She's just... there.
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Bad Judge is a bad show, though it has a pretty solid cast.
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The pilot is not that funny as it trades in predictable gags about a woman who's competent at the office but a mess in her personal life.
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Walsh’s gifts--put to great use recently on “Fargo”--aren’t the only ones going to waste. Ryan Hansen as an expert medical witness and the judge’s booty-call-who-wants-more, and Ryan McPartlin as a dim-witted fireman, are given little to work with. No matter what the crime, no TV viewer should be sentenced to watch Bad Judge.
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Yes, Walsh’s Judge Rebecca Wright is an unapologetic party gal, and a self-described “workaholic freakshow.” Yet in the reworked premiere--which has managed to make the show inoffensive, but not good--she’s not even really that bad.
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It keeps resorting to broad gags and dopey jokes, and, just to mix things up, every so often it lunges at sincerity. None of it lands, unfortunately.
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Until the show figures out how to make sitcom slapstick and inner-beauty melodrama work, it’s kind of a mess.
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Walsh is a fantastic actress with a wide range of talents, including comedy, but none of them were on display here. While there is potential in the concept of a respected judge on the bench who is a hard-partying reprobate in her personal life, NBC failed to find it in this dud.
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A premiere that has almost no laughs at all.
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It’s trite, boring, has almost no movement or believability and, outside of Walsh’s legs, has not one thing to recommend.
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A toxic concoction of smarm and schmaltz. ... Bad Judge is the sort of bad TV show that makes you despair of the future of comedy.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 19 out of 36
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Mixed: 5 out of 36
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Negative: 12 out of 36
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Oct 2, 2014
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Oct 7, 2014
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Oct 4, 2014