Baskets

Baskets builds into a character-study treasure, much like FX precursor “Louie.”

Galifianakis, Anderson and Kelly fit their roles like the thick rubber gloves used in emptying human waste from portable johns. What fine messes they’re in.

It's a good mix of highbrow humor and silly, kick-in-the-pants laughs. [22 Jan 2016, p.66]

As with all things bitter, it’s an acquired taste, but worth the time it takes to get there.

Baskets makes itself compelling by refusing to make a total caricature of Chip, or Martha, or Christine. The show genuinely loves these characters, as stunted and confused as they are.

Chip is an angry guy wholly consumed with himself, but as ludicrous as he may be, Galifianakis makes him feel stubbornly real. Chip is a bitter, middle-age guy holding on to his dream so tightly he's suffocating himself. That commitment also extends to Louie Anderson, who brilliantly plays Chip's mom, Christine--yes, his mom (in drag).

While Baskets is an acidic, sometimes depressing watch, it’s much better than that sounds--an incisive, absurd, darkly heartfelt show set not on the stage but in America’s dreary urban sprawl.

A dark and strangely beautiful new sitcom.

An absurdity that is disturbing real, funny at times, and depressing at others.

Ultimately, Baskets isn’t a cold-hearted laugh at his expense. Chip’s downward spiral is affecting, and by episode three, I was emotionally invested in his journey.

Galifianakis delivers a remarkable performance, connected enough to his star persona to make the work accessible but pitched at a new level of mania

If its oddball first impression holds true throughout this inaugural season, that same caginess, and the free-form opportunity that comes with it, could very well emerge as the best thing Baskets has to pull from its bag of tricks.

Baskets is difficult to categorize but extremely funny.

While it’s not always easy to watch--and can go for long stretches without a real laugh--Baskets elevates itself by showing it’s interested in more than just clowning around.

It’s hard to predict where the series is headed, or even if the delicate mix of jokes and introspective moments can keep walking the tightrope, let alone dance on it. But there’s something here worth keeping an eye on--the people, really. Galifianakis, Anderson and especially Kelly fill Baskets with possibility, even if it’s not exactly brimming with energy from the onset.

With her understated, monotone delivery no matter the situation, Kelly just might be the comedic find of the season. Galifianakis delivers a finely tuned grump as Chip and an over-the-top shrew as Dale. Under co-creator, executive producer and director Jonathan Krisel’s sensitive care, Baskets is a funny show about sad people.

It’s good to know there’s something more to Baskets than a creep in greasepaint. The delicious misery here is evenly spread.

The series is set in recognizably real environments, and the photography, editing, and sound design are often as moody and intense as anything in the work of Paul Thomas Anderson.... Chip’s arrogance and obliviousness undercut any sympathy we might feel for him. Only Galifianakis’s distinctive energy keeps us from finding the character entirely unpalatable.

When the show works as a comedy--which it does at about a 30-70 ratio--it’s all about an accumulation of silliness, delivered with a straight and yearning face, rather than clear-eyed observation.... But a comedy that inspires more pathos than laughter isn't necessarily failed. It just might be mislabeled.

Baskets is so naturalistic it’s almost whimsical. Except it’s so definitely lacks any whimsy that all of its naturalism can actually be stale.

It’s funny, weird, caustic, and occasionally affecting (mostly thanks to Kelly), and parts of it are very good. But there’s also something fleeting about it that doesn’t make it standout as essential viewing.

The character [Zach Galifianakis] plays in Baskets (along with the main character's twin brother) is too often unfunny and too mean to the poor insurance adjuster, but I found [Martha Kelly's insurance adjuster character] and Chip's mother to be pretty entertaining.

After the promising first episode, Baskets wanders, becoming a sour, rambling sendup of strip-mall American life.

I wish desperately that it wanted to be funnier. The only real smiles come from Louie Anderson as the clown's mother.

[Louie] Anderson and Martha Kelly--who delivers a supremely deadpan performance as Chip's downtrodden friend--are the best things in Baskets, which is so aggressively downbeat it washes away most of the humor.

After a handful of episodes that were periodically funny and stridently downbeat (which seemed to be the goal), Baskets got stuck in that low gear.

Baskets is bold, it is courageous, but it doesn’t really work. It’s not that a TV comedy has to offer wall-to-wall belly laughs, but unrelenting bleakness with the minor relief of a few scattered bits of dry humor--no matter how much it may aspire to a neo-Beckettian level--ends up being more bemusing than amusing.

Very little of this sad clown’s life feels fresh or urgently original.

The surrealness almost disguises the repetitive plot of returning home as a manchild. But as a series, Baskets is more bleak than amusing.

Chip’s sad life is neither funny nor moving; it’s just a parade of discomfort, for both the characters and the audience.

[Chip's mother] is played with Baskets’ one true flash of inspiration by Louie Anderson. Anderson inhabits Christine Baskets with a wonderful, tart delicacy.... Chip Baskets is most often a selfish creep. It’s a brave move for a performer to make, and congratulations to Galifianakis for his commitment. Just don’t ask me to keep watching him in this role.