- Network: Comedy Central
- Series Premiere Date: Aug 17, 2010
Critic Reviews
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Oh, no--can it really be an other sitcom about a grown son moving back home after failing big time in the big city? Yes. But not, "oh, no."
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Their [Gethard and Parnell] interplay, once things get moving, is appealing, if not quite compelling, but what sold me on the pilot was the moment when 14-year-old Dylan Blue, as Gethard's beyond-the-law kid brother, revealed his dark side, and his gun; I was a little frightened.
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I might not believe for a moment that any of these people actually exist in nature, much less Pennsylvania, but Big Lake, with its wink and a nod to a format that always required suspension of disbelief, is at least more than willing to own its silliness.
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Many of the jokes are non sequitur riffs that turn into endurance tests. The cast seems to be aware of it.
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The show's tone slips between sitcom cheese and push-the-envelope absurdity.
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It just plays like strung-together sketch comedy, working much harder for fewer rewards than if it added a little depth to the characters.
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It's just a flat traditional sitcom built around lazy, repetitive jokes and audience cackles. It's just bad.
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Broadly limned, Big Lake works neither as a satire--and it stops trying after the delivery of Josh's back story--nor as an adventure in surrealist comedy, and it is tough to watch the strain for eccentricity.
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The mock-retro sitcom Big Lake, which boasts big-name producers (Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Chris Henchy, whose The Other Guys is currently in theaters) but little in the way of actual comedy.
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With this much bad acting and writing, this body of water should be declared a Superfund site.
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Having endured two installments, it's frankly hard to imagine anybody wading through Big Lake 98 more times.