Fresh Off the Boat
ABC | Release Date: February 4, 2015
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
HitfixDaniel FienbergFeb 4, 2015
Season 1 Review: Along with FOX's "Last Man On Earth," Fresh Off The Boat is one of the best new network comedies of the spring and both are probably better than any network half-hour--allowing for "Jane the Virgin" genre wiggle-room here--that debuted last fall. Read full review
90
TimeJames PoniewozikFeb 4, 2015
Season 1 Review: Fresh Off the Boat is damn funny--–but not only funny and not cheaply funny. Three episodes in, it’s the best broadcast comedy of the new season, a daring but good-hearted sitcom about the complexities of identity–-about not only being different but being different from the different. Read full review
90
The Huffington PostMaureen RyanFeb 4, 2015
Season 1 Review: Fresh Off the Boat is good--at times, very good. Without question, it's one of the best new shows of the broadcast network season: funny, well-acted and promising on a number of levels. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyMelissa MaerzFeb 12, 2015
Season 1 Review: It’s a relief to find that Fresh Off the Boat is not only genuinely funny and surprisingly broad but also a little bit subversive. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubCaroline FramkeFeb 4, 2015
Season 1 Review: Fresh Off The Boat may not be the take-no-prisoners depiction of Asian-American life that Huang originally envisioned, but it still provides a perspective long overdue on television in a way that’s at once smart, sweet, and funny--a far cry from “Panda Express.” Read full review
83
Boston HeraldMark A. PerigardFeb 2, 2015
Season 1 Review: Fresh Off the Boat is the funniest, most charming show of the season. Read full review
80
The WrapMekeisha Madden TobyFeb 4, 2015
Season 1 Review: Fresh off the Boat has soul, flavor and an incredible cast. Time will tell if the comedy finds the audience it richly deserves. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Margaret LyonsFeb 4, 2015
Season 1 Review: The show is perfectly cast, and it certainly seems like there's plenty of story to be had. Read full review
80
SalonWilla PaskinFeb 4, 2015
Season 1 Review: The show--especially by the third episode, “The Shunning”--manages to take a single story and turn it into something uniquely transformative for numerous characters; this is especially true for Eddie and Jessica, who as stay-at-home mom and eldest-immigrant son are, despite their fighting, very close to each other. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert LloydFeb 4, 2015
Season 1 Review: Fresh Off the Boat may not be exactly the series of Huang's dreams, or completely true to the life he has sold to show business, but it's a consistently funny and even important one, with some lovely, nuanced performances. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsDavid HinckleyFeb 4, 2015
Season 1 Review: While much of the show is driven by the Huangs adapting to a new culture, Fresh Off the Boat finds the amusing parts of that experience without falling back on easy stereotypical jokes. Read full review
80
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob OwenFeb 4, 2015
Season 1 Review: The cast of unknowns is terrific and the writing, overseen by executive producer Nahnatchka Khan (“Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23”), is fresh, funny and mostly clean. Read full review
80
SlateWilla PaskinFeb 3, 2015
Season 1 Review: ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat [is] yet another damn good, diverse network sitcom that premieres this Wednesday night and remains funny, charming, sweet, and subtly provocative despite--according to no less an expert than the subject of the show itself--having had some of its edge sanded off. Read full review
80
VarietyBrian LowryFeb 3, 2015
Season 1 Review: In an ABC lineup eager to replicate that rarest of commodities--a good, and modern, family comedy--the show appears to have accomplished what Eddie yearns to do: Fit right in. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTim GoodmanFeb 2, 2015
Season 1 Review: Fresh Off the Boat finds jokes in plenty of other, non-racial issues, and that’s often the bonus that gives you confidence this is a show with legs. Read full review
75
Newark Star-LedgerVicki HymanFeb 4, 2015
Season 1 Review: Watered-down or not, the immigrant/culture clash storylines are the freshest things about Fresh Off the Boat, which is a pastiche of other ABC sitcoms (thankfully, the good ones). Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchGail PenningtonFeb 4, 2015
Season 1 Review: There's a lot of setup, and we don't know these people well enough yet to laugh with them instead of at them. That begins to change quickly, though, as Fresh Off the Boat gets into its groove, humanizing its characters and upping its humor quotient. Read full review
75
NewsdayVerne GayFeb 3, 2015
Season 1 Review: Fresh Off the Boat is charming, convivial, even--gasp--at times cute. Read full review
70
The New YorkerEmily NussbaumMar 2, 2015
Season 1 Review: Somehow it still manages to find strangeness within its sentimentality. Fresh Off the Boat is unlikely to dismantle the master’s house. But it opens a door. Read full review
70
Boston GlobeMatthew GilbertFeb 3, 2015
Season 1 Review: The show is sweet enough and features a likable cast. The assimilation material is a bit obvious in the two episodes provided for review, but that’s typical in new comedies trying to establish their stomping grounds. Read full review
70
Denver PostJoanne OstrowFeb 2, 2015
Season 1 Review: It won’t be the hit of the year, but Fresh Off the Boat is worth a look. Read full review
67
Washington PostHank StueverJan 13, 2015
Season 1 Review: Fresh Off the Boat wants to be both “Black-ish” and “The Goldbergs”--and it works fairly okay as a companion piece to either--but it’s a lot better show when it occasionally stops going for just the easy jokes and aims for a subtler, sharper line of comment. Read full review
63
USA TodayRobert BiancoFeb 3, 2015
Season 1 Review: There are some very funny moments in the first of tonight's two episodes, most of them provided by Wu and Park, and fleeting indications that Fresh could be a better, deeper show than the one we're seeing. Read full review
63
New York PostRobert RorkeFeb 2, 2015
Season 1 Review: Having established the exaggerated and predictable weirdness of all white people, Fresh Off the Boat seems to have run through its one topic--and one joke. Read full review
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