Downward Dog

People are dogs, too. We also have complicated emotional lives, further complicated by our professional ones. We also seek food. We also seek love. We obsess. Nan and Martin’s bond works--and consequently this terrific series works--because it abides by these simple, inalienable truths.

Downward Dog obviously could have gone very wrong. Instead it gets almost everything irresistibly right, whether it’s Martin’s simple yet challenging life (“I’m only human,” he reasons) or the accompanying two-legged human endeavors that shift his mind into overdrive and this series into the realm of the near-sublime.

Martin is clearly the star of the show, so any time he's on camera things click. It's when Nan goes to work where things can get occasionally off kilter.

Downward is shaggy but sweet, a surreal little Scooby snack. [19 May 2017, p.54]

The new TV series Downward Dog takes on loneliness and fear and all the other gunk that gets caught in your spiritual gutters when you start feeling low. It can be warm, but only once its characters push their way through searing self-doubt to get to the other side.

It’s a shockingly witty and enjoyable slant on the television romantic comedy. Only here, the romantic lead and hero is a dog for whom there are no half measures.

It's charming. It's funny, but not in a setup-joke, yuck-it-up way. It's sort of observational comedy--observed from the dog's point of view.

Smart, clever and punctuated with moments of warmth that avoid treacle, ABC’s Downward Dog delivers delightful comedy thanks to an angsty canine character with a psyche that is more human than mutt.

A sweet little show, low key and more smile-worthy than hilarious.

Curbing Martin’s screen time would ultimately benefit Downward Dog, whose human cast is just as enjoyable. But Killen and Hodges have also seen to it that their furry co-lead is more than just a gimmick.

As with any show built around a high-concept gimmick, there’s a danger here that the trick will wear thin; that we’ll tire of Martin’s low-energy observations. (Ned, at least as filmed, is the most morose dog on the planet.) But for now, be content with how much this Dog has going for it, starting with the gentle way it ambles along, speaking softly rather than barking at us, and including the sweet chemistry between Neff and Tolman.

One of the most unexpected and endearing surprises of the late spring. [29 May - 11 Jun 2017, p.12]

A relatively quiet, at times almost meditative comedy with a talking animal at its center.

Although it’s nicely scruffy around the edges, it’s essentially a gimmick show with not enough funny lines to make Martin’s sonorous narration appealing after you listen to him for more than 15 minutes. Tolman is very good, but you walk away from the show thinking she really could have done better than this as her post-Fargo project.

When the show does work, it’s because of Tolman’s performance and the unseen Hodges, who has the perfect laid-back voice for Martin.

When Downward Dog tries to be a show as funny as the ABC ads try to make it look, it's not very good at all. ... When Downward Dog is about the love triangle or unconventional ménage à trois between Martin, Nan and Jason, that's a show that I mostly enjoyed.

The weird, creepy comedy about the world of a struggling copy writer from her dog’s perspective. ... Three episodes of this show and I was fantasizing about dropping this flea bag off at a shelter and speeding away. Oh, some of the bipeds here are endearing, when they get their moments.

Occasionally, his dog-ologue finds great material--such as Martin’s fear of an automatic door turning into the dawning realization that he must have secret powers over the universe--but that is smothered with oddly entitled “zingers” about the dog’s dissatisfaction with “monogamy.”