Broad City

Broad City presents a recognizable, recognizably hilarious perspective on what trying-but-failing looks like from the inside.

This outgrowth of a cult-hit web series is a lighter, wackier and often funnier version of HBO’s “Girls.”

The premiere does feel a tad stretched at times. But next week’s episode gets deeper into the girls’ money troubles with the help of guests Rachel Dratch and Janeane Garofalo as oddball yet oddly authentic employers. By then, the humor is humming along nicely and--what do you know--Broad City” has found its rhythm.

A delightful, knockabout new sitcom.

Broad City has a more pronounced DIY vibe, a more surreal, sloppy and affectionate nature: The episodes are more narrowly focused on its two leads getting up to haphazard mischief.

While Broad City is not heartwarming comedy, there’s an undertone of need and connection between them that helps their friendship make sense: Ilana needs Abbi’s dependability, Abbi needs Ilana to give her a kick into gear. Together, they give the early episodes an off-kilter sense of fun that recommends sticking around for more. Broad City is not the next Louie yet, nor should it try to be, but it’s a promising version of itself.

Its two featured newcomers skid along just fine, earning exceedingly small victories en route.

The series got its start on the Internet and is more linear, unpolished and narrowly comedic than “Girls” on HBO--Abbi and Ilana are so feckless that they make Lena Dunham’s Hannah seem like Warren Buffett.

Adapted from its Web format, Broad City is hardly a fully formed exercise just yet, but with a clear comic voice (Jacobson and Glazer are also the writers) it merits the time to find itself.

As opposed to a more mainstream comedy like The Mindy Project or Two Broke Girls, Broad City sits at the margins of comedy and doesn't muddle its humor by sticking its conclusions about the human condition right under the audience's nose.

[Broad City] feels like a series of sketches that often hit but sometimes miss.

The show veers precariously between low-budget and lazy, and the sketches are hit-or-miss. Still, Jacobson and Glazer make an appealing odd couple. [24 Jan 2014, p.64]