Bless This Mess

Despite its likable leads, the skyscraper-to-cornstalks premise feels stale--though Pam Grier delights as one of the many kooky locals--and the plot contains holes. But an affecting climax, where Rio and Mike face each other--and reality--indicates potential. [19/26 Apr 2019, p.90]

It’s a solid 22 minutes of television ... But after less than a half-hour of setup, there’s no way of saying if the first season is richer or poorer than the sum of its parts.

It is fully formed and funny, a dry contemporary comedy built on an old foundation.

[Bless This Mess] doesn’t embarrass itself here but also doesn’t do much to push the sitcom needle in a new direction.

If the series succeeds it’s thanks to Bell and Shepard’s pleasant chemistry, which carries the premise further than seems possible if the leads were cast differently.

Much of the humor is of the predictable, fish out of water variety ... but “Bless This Mess” is at its funniest when it gets weird with characters like Rudy (Ed Begley Jr.), who lives in the couple’s barn, and Jacob (JT Neal), the dim-witted son of the neighbors.

The first 22 minutes of Bless This Mess rely too heavily on, "Man, I can't believe we're still doing that joke in 2019" tropes and hackneyed beats.

Like Meriwether’s biggest hit, New Girl, the show balances old-fashioned sweetness with of-the-moment characters and cultural references; neither rural nor urban types comes across as caricatures. Best of all, Bell and Shepard make an utterly believable, sympathetic couple–one that is just beginning to understand what it really means to make a lifelong commitment.