• Network: NBC
  • Series Premiere Date: Sep 24, 2002
Metascore
29

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 22 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 22
  2. Negative: 15 out of 22

Critic Reviews

  1. Dallas Morning News
    Reviewed by: Manuel Mendoza
    Aug 10, 2014
    83
    Hidden Hills isn't deep, but at least it's trying to be relevant to modern domestic dilemmas. In the age of sitcom blockheads and their domineering wives, that's a major accomplishment. [24 Sept 2002, p.8C]
  2. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Glenn Garvin
    Aug 10, 2014
    70
    It sounds smarmy and cliched. But Hidden Hills is really a wry meditation on stale, overworked marriages that's both funny and insightful. [24 Sept 2002, p.E1]
  3. Reviewed by: Tim Goodman
    Aug 10, 2014
    50
    Sometimes the suburban jokes work -- every little girl seems to be named Caitlin -- but Hidden Hills is mostly still foraging for the hidden jokes that will make it more original.
  4. Detroit Free Press
    Reviewed by: Mike Duffy
    Aug 10, 2014
    50
    This so-so show uses the sight gag style of "Scrubs" -- visualizing a character's thoughts and fantasies -- minus the funny medical comedy's superior wit and comic smarts. [24 Sept 2002]
  5. Variety
    Reviewed by: Phil Gallo
    Aug 10, 2014
    40
    The show's cast is potentially likable; once they're given a script that doesn't feel so derivative and stuck on a single note, show could blossom. [23 Sept 2002, p.22]
  6. Orlando Sentinel
    Reviewed by: Hal Boedeker
    Aug 10, 2014
    40
    The filmed series carries no laugh track, and that's merciful because there is nothing remotely funny. [24 Sept 2002, p.E1]
  7. Kansas City Star
    Reviewed by: Aaron Barnhart
    Aug 10, 2014
    40
    Some of it works, like a jealous dream Doug (Louis) has in next week's episode about his wife (Marshall) and the hunks working on his water main. [24 Sept 2002, p.E1]
  8. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Robert Bianco
    Aug 10, 2014
    37
    Marshall, on the other hand, has been more actively responsible for her shows' demise. From "Cupid" to "Snoops" to Hidden Hills, she projects the same cold, closed persona. That may be perfect for smaller roles, but for a sitcom lead, you'd have to consider her a bad choice. [24 Sept 2002 p.3D]
  9. Reviewed by: David Bianculli
    Aug 10, 2014
    37
    A lesson in how a sitcom can use fast-paced visuals, snappy music, antic editing and sexy fantasy sequences and still look tired.
  10. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
    Reviewed by: Rob Owen
    Aug 10, 2014
    30
    Mostly it's the story of a sex-starved, immature, lazy guy who flings dog poop into his neighbor's yard. NBC has done something similar by inflicting this show on the viewing public. [24 Sept 2002, p.C-6]
  11. Reviewed by: Anita Gates
    Aug 10, 2014
    30
    Just one more comedy trying too hard.
  12. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Matthew Gilbert
    Aug 10, 2014
    30
    Underneath the slick production effects and the affluent LA setting, there are only stale jokes and plastic people. The ads for the series promise us, "It's like your life. Only funnier." To borrow from another NBC sitcom, if that is true, just shoot me. [24 Sept 2002, p.A16]
  13. San Diego Union-Tribune
    Reviewed by: Robert P. Laurence
    Aug 10, 2014
    25
    Or maybe that line just seems funny, because it's one of the few that's about anything but you-know-what. [24 Sept 2002, p.E-6]
  14. The Detroit News
    Reviewed by: Tom Long
    Aug 10, 2014
    25
    This series reflects the way wealthy, neurotic, overly busy and sex-obsessed TV executives and producers think America lives, in other words, the way they live. They're wrong. Most of us are not TV executives. Please let Hidden Hills be hidden for good as soon as possible. [24 Sept 2002]
  15. Newsday
    Reviewed by: Diane Werts
    Aug 10, 2014
    20
    If this is comedy, who needs it? [24 Sept 2002, p.B27]
  16. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    Reviewed by: Gail Pennington
    Aug 10, 2014
    10
    Even more obnoxious, although that hardly seems possible, is NBC's Hidden Hills, a crude and unfunny comedy about suburban families. [24 Sept 2002, p.E8]
  17. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Storm
    Aug 10, 2014
    10
    This season's worst new series. [24 Sept 2002, p.F01]
  18. Reviewed by: Howard Rosenberg
    Aug 10, 2014
    10
    The least bearable series of the fall.
  19. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Steve Johnson
    Aug 10, 2014
    10
    In the first two episodes, at least, it plays too over the top to ring true. [24 Sept 2002, p.39]
  20. Reviewed by: Tom Shales
    Aug 10, 2014
    0
    Hidden Hills, yet another lame sitcom from NBC, suffers from a virus common to a few other new fall shows: hyper-narratoritis. One of the characters keeps up a pestering voice-over commentary throughout the show, making it seem less like a TV program than a phone conversation...A phone conversation with a blithering idiot, that is.
  21. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Linda Stasi
    Aug 10, 2014
    0
    Mother Theresa's life had more laughs than this phony bore. [24 Sept 2002, p.75]
  22. Deseret News
    Reviewed by: Scott D. Pierce
    Aug 10, 2014
    0
    I hate this show...This is an awful, awful show. [24 Sept 2002, p.C08]