Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!

“Dad You’re Embarrassing Me!” works because of the specifics, namely its easy way with topicality. It feels both old and new. It has a charm that doesn’t go out of style.

There is a germ of a good overall show there, especially because Kyla-Drew is already a mature comedic performer at the tender age of 17. The relationship between Sasha and Brian will be the key to whether Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! becomes anything but a showcase for Foxx to do his shtick.

“Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!” has a sunny and light tone (albeit with some politically incorrect humor) and features a tremendously likable cast, but it comes across as a hackneyed and surprisingly uninspired effort given the level of talent involved.

A fossilized sitcom that time-travelled all the way from the 1990s, with one calcified gag after the next, punctuated by the occasional (fortuitously rare) discordant off-color joke. ... With its trusty old-school TV verities, hug-it-out moments, beats as familiar as any from "Father Knows Best," and a laugh track that's probably turned up a notch too loud — plus bonus points for a solid supporting cast — it'll probably be a hit.

It’s both too much and not enough, just like Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! is ultimately both too self-aware and oblivious. The series doesn’t trust its laugh track to flag the jokes for viewers; it extends the gags or finds some other way to double down. Likewise, what social commentary can be found in Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! is underscored but ultimately inadequate.

It's pretty much everything the exclamation point would suggest -- a star-driven exercise that's loud but not very good.

“Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!” sticks to the multi-cam basics. There’s no joke that can’t be followed with a slapstick exclamation point, nor any point that can’t be emphatically underlined with an exaggerated reaction from an unseen audience. ... There’s almost something soothing about how predictable it is, right down to the dusty punchlines threaded throughout every scene.

Corinne Foxx supposedly lent her teenage diaries to the writing team for inspiration, yet the show still reaches for the same old after-school special plotlines that family sitcoms have been wheeling out since time immemorial. ... The rest is a mix of racial comedy – the kind that’s a staple of American humour, but often sounds lazily regressive to British ears – and oddly glib nods to hot-button issues.