Girls5eva

Ann easy sell for the devout fan base of programming in the Fey-Carlock universe. ... All the women understand the role they’re playing and know how to hit a punch line, but it’s Pell’s character that really stands out. She seems to get the best dialogue, as evidenced for this review. But Gloria also represents the inherent sexism that we still see today.

“Girls5Eva” always feels too short because you’re laughing at everything packed into the episodes. If you grew up following the teen music scene during the new millennium you’ll find everything you loved (and a bunch of stuff you missed) in the series. It’s a loving tribute to the music we loved — and the themes we’ve hopefully moved away from.

Girls5eva‘s pleasures, though, far outweigh its stumbles. And best of all, it’s a fun, easy binge, with all eight episodes dropping at once. It’s a relief to have something light and fun to watch, frankly. So much TV these days, even the good stuff, is hard to watch — but this is a joy.

Funny and sharp, with some welcome (also inescapable) inflections of "30 Rock."

The show generally succeeds with its throw-everything-at-the-wall mentality, and the season finale is a triumph of ridiculousness and pent-up emotion.

The eight-episode season is full of beautifully honed jokes, absurdities, acute commentary (as well as some more similar to the decidedly unacute, defensive moments about “woke” criticism and contemporary issues the previous Fey/Carlock collaborations contained), sight gags and song and dance numbers. ... It is, as I say, a joy.

“Girls5eva” is spawned from the Fey model: accessibly absurdist, riddled with clever zingers, thick with critique. The cast makes this a fun binge.

An onslaught of wit, pure silliness, nostalgia, and absurdity, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Girls5eva, with its sprint through zaniness and invigorating message about getting yourself back out there even if it might be scary, might be the comedy series to capture our transition back into a celebratory world.

Many of Fey's usual comedic beats play through these eight episodes, but familiarity isn't the worst quality for a show that's meant to be binged. Knowing what you're getting tells you whether the four-or-so-hour commitment is worth it. Really, for a pure feel-good comedy about enduring friendship, the love these women have for each other and the embrace of one's 40s with all its wisdom and physical changes, it's not much to ask.

With four fantastic leads and some sharp writing, Girls5eva should give Fey-Carlock fans the fix they’ve been looking for since Kimmy Schmidt ended.

However obvious the narrative nuts and bolts, one feels the defeats and victories, the rifts and reconciliations, on a human level. Admittedly, I am a softy, but you too may be moved.

Once all that premise establishment is taken care of, Girls5Eva is able to do what it does best: crank out joke after joke about the sometimes degrading and always ridiculous exercise of attempting to work in show business.

Not every joke is a killer, but the pacing makes you pay attention and the dialogue is delivered with precision by everyone with a script. That there is an abundance of musical talent in the show gives the story an authenticity it might otherwise lack.

At this juncture, it’s not saying much to declare Girls5eva Peacock’s best original series — there’s not much competition for the title. But it’s certainly the kind of too-funny-not-to-share show that should proliferate by word of mouth. The 40-somethings of Girls5eva might never reach the spotlight again, but their journeys toward it are already delightful and deliriously witty.

This show is driven more by jokes than by story. And what jokes they are! “Girls5eva” is most fully itself when puncturing the pretensions of its characters and the world around them, and its sensibility grows clearer over the course of the first season. Like its characters, the series is finding its voice, and doing so with style.

Bareillis, who worked on the scores for the musicals “Waitress” and “SpongeBob SquarePants,” contributes some songs, too, and amid a lot of clever, outsized exaggeration, her easygoing presence grounds this promising series nicely.

It’s effortlessly entertaining and frequently funny; an easy, breezy eight-episode binge.

The show’s commentary on female friendships is mostly explored in the realms of surreal comedy, and while the core ensemble delivers on that front, there just isn’t enough focus on their emotional dynamic as a group. The show is still enjoyable because of the effective physical comedy.

“Girls5Eva” is easy to like: There’s a strong cast of actors I’ve enjoyed in other things, trying a brand of comedy I remember fondly from other shows. It’s funny and fun. But it feels more like a flashback than a comeback.

It’s all endearingly daffy, even if keeping up with the logic behind each joke can sometimes feel like work. ... But the show nicely scratches a particular comic itch, even before Fey herself pops up for a cameo, doing a celebrity impression that rivals her best SNL work. Fey didn’t create Girls5Eva, but it feels enough like her work to get by.