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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
21
Mixed:
12
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews
Jan 13, 2026
Season 1 Review:
As funny as TV gets. [20 Feb 2003, p.112]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 2 Review:
I laughed so much, I'm sure I hurt something, maybe in my back, or maybe in my front. [16 July 2004, p.121]
Jan 13, 2026
Season 1 Review:
This is rich material: Think of it as a particularly outrageous "Candid Camera," with politicians and Sunday-morning talking heads as the marks. [21 Feb 2003, p.U35]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 2 Review:
As played and imagined by the comic Sacha Baron Cohen, it's wickedly amusing stuff, whether he's asking Sam Donaldson about Nixon's "Waterworld" scandal, former Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates about "The Simpsons," or Patrick Buchanan about the time he was president. [16 July 2004, p.C5]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 1 Review:
As funny as those vignettes are, they pale in comparison to Ali's interviews with political figures. As incredible as the cretin's inane questions are, the straightforward responses from people -- who either take Ali seriously or know the whole thing is a bit and play along -- are a scream. [21 Feb 2003, p.C3]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 2 Review:
It's one thing to look like you have no sense of reality. It's quite another to look like you have no sense of humor. [17 July 2004, p.C1]
Jan 14, 2026
Season 1 Review:
You've seen this kind of shtick before on other shows, but Cohen occasionally gets off a laugh-out-loud moment. [21 Feb 2003, p.45]
Jan 13, 2026
Season 1 Review:
He moons ya, he fools ya, and it don't mattah much if ya love him or ya hate him, he gonna make ya laugh. Dat's Ali G. [20 Feb 2003]
Jan 13, 2026
Season 1 Review:
I'd seen a tape of Cohen's UK show and wasn't impressed - but as with so many TV stars, being on HBO just seems to improve him. [18 Feb 2003]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Too bad this show doesn't run outtakes. Wouldn't you love to hear what the victims of Ali's ambushes had to say about him? [20 Feb 2003, p.4]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 1 Review:
It makes for good TV. [21 Feb 2003, p.S35]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 1 Review:
You've seen this kind of shtick before on other shows, but Cohen occasionally gets off a laugh-out-loud moment. [21 Feb 2003, p.45]
Jan 14, 2026
Season 1 Review:
What Cohen's characters lack in originality, they make up for in execution. [24 Feb 2003]
Jan 13, 2026
Season 1 Review:
In England, critics have called Cohen the new Peter Sellers. If that's the case, it's not Sellers at his "Dr. Strangelove"-"Being There" shrewdest but, rather, at his do-it-for-the-money "Pink Panther"-sequel broadest. [21 Feb 2003]
Jan 14, 2026
Season 1 Review:
Despite Cohen's talent for submerging himself in his characters, "Da Ali G Show" is a spotty venture. [22 Feb 2003]
Jan 13, 2026
Season 1 Review:
The Brits just love Ali G, but they have a considerable appetite for rude, politically incorrect satire. Americans may just find him rather peculiar. [21 Feb 2003, p.E5]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 2 Review:
The joke remains the same and threatens to wear out, but it's still a kick to see him asking thoroughly ill-informed questions of people who should know enough to walk out on him. [16 July 2004, p.47]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 1 Review:
The funniest thing about the show is that people think he's legit in every single persona. I personally couldn't believe that Edwin Meese, former Attorney General Dick Thornberg or General Brent Scowcroft would be idiotic enough to be lured into a formal interview with a guy in a giant yellow track suit. [20 Feb 2003, p.112]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 1 Review:
The Brits just love Ali G, but they have a considerable appetite for rude, politically incorrect satire...Americans may just find him rather peculiar. [21 Feb 2003, p.E-5]
Jan 13, 2026
Season 1 Review:
There's no question that Sacha Baron Cohen is talented. And it may prove unwise to discount the tremendous popularity he and his Ali G character achieved in the United Kingdom. But the concept is hardly original to an American audience and, unfortunately, plays well under the acceptable level of greatness we've all come to expect from HBO. [21 Feb 2003]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 2 Review:
Though Baron Cohen is clever and amusing and quick on his feet, his humor boils down to a few endlessly repeated gambits: malapropisms, misunderstandings, and outrageousness in the guise of innocence. [17 July 2004, p.13]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 2 Review:
Mr. Cohen is better served - and better disguised - as the suited, shorthaired Borat. He's reminiscent of Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau, a painfully sincere bumbler who gets smashed on wine with the Mississippians on Sunday night before addressing an Oklahoma city council meeting next week. [18 July 2004, p.3]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Cheap humor? Yes. Based on obvious stereotypes? Yes. Funny? What can I say? Borat got a chuckle out of me. And so did Bruno. [21 Feb 2003, p.B47]
Jan 13, 2026
Season 1 Review:
The galling part is how Cohen betrays satire by making it hollow and toothless. "Da Ali G Show" is a sheep in wolf's clothing. [21 Feb 2003]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Funny in parts, overlong and out of steam in some taped bits and generally very inside in the humor department. Late night's a good spot for it, but the push for cult appeal in this six-seg series feels forced. [20 Feb 2003, p.10]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 1 Review:
One problem is that sometimes Cohen seems less interested in attacking funny bones than in appealing to sadistic streaks. [21 Feb 2003, p.C01]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 1 Review:
Despite Cohen's talent for submerging himself in his characters, Da Ali G Show is a spotty venture. As on "Saturday Night Live," the sketches are overextended instead of staying short and tart. And Cohen only flirts with political and cultural satire as he toys with his guests, who also include former US attorney general Richard L. Thornburgh. He resists making real points about America, falling back on the more small-minded fun of saying dirty words in front of unsuspecting people or watching them writhe when they hear his sex talk. Ultimately, he's a version of Howard Stern's interviewer Stuttering John, only in more exotic drag. [22 Feb 2003, p.F12]
Jan 13, 2026
Season 1 Review:
Cohen is talented, but there's nothing he's doing that wasn't done better, and more creatively, by Andy Kaufman decades ago. [21 Feb 2003]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 1 Review:
It's not that Cohen, especially in his Ali G character, never gets off an amusing ad lib. It's just that his humor and his characters aren't nearly funny enough. And several times they cross the line into all-out meanness. It's an approach that's uncalled for, unimpressive and - as when he picks on a religious woman simply because she's overweight - horribly unfunny. [21 Feb 2003, p.139]
Aug 12, 2013
Season 2 Review:
Frankly, Da Ali G Show, which begins its second season this week, is a huge embarrassment. [18 July 2004, p.8]
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