- Network: FOX
- Series Premiere Date: Oct 5, 2014
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Critic Reviews
- Critic score
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- By date
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When everyone gets a fair chance to play, Mulaney finds its right type of weird. The ingredients are here for a show that’s more than a showbiz satire or a four-friends-and-a-couch comedy.
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Mulaney often feels inauthentic and forced. However, one gets a feeling that like his smart stand-up material, Mulaney is aware of the awkwardness of his chosen format and is using it to his advantage. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.83]
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The premiere is weak.... But by its third episode, the show is confident enough to make you think it might, as Seinfeld did, survive its rocky start. [3 Oct 2014, p.67]
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Strain to be the next 'Seinfeld' much? But this one has a strong cast, and punchy one-liners.
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The plots of the first episodes have none of the labyrinthine structure of classic Seinfeld episodes; they feel more like vehicles for prewritten bits. They’re funny, but they don’t sound like regular people talking. This artificial sensibility is exacerbated by various performances.
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[The premiere] finds Mulaney surrounded by quirk, some of it good--Martin Short as his boss, Nasim Pedrad as one of his roommates--and some of it just annoying.
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The bad news: The first episode is a mess. The good news: It gets (somewhat) better
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So the show seems either a subversive deconstruction of the laugh-track sitcom blueprint or a stupefying misfire built around the blandest star ever.
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Though Mulaney the stand-up has a clear point of view, Mulaney the sitcom does not. It's a show about nothing, with nothing to say about that.
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Although there are a few snarky laughs in the pilot, they can’t compete with the uncomfortable feeling that Mulaney, bless his heart, isn’t ready for prime time.
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We don’t dislike the characters. We just don’t feel compelled to watch them, because they often don’t feel much more real than the animated characters they’re replacing on Fox Sunday night.
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Mulaney's ensemble just isn't powerful enough, and rather than jazz up so-so material, they somehow drain the energy from possibly funny moments.
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Mulaney, a bland new Fox sitcom from former-SNL writer and stand-up comedian John Mulaney, has a laugh track. This is, by far, the most interesting thing about it.
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Mulaney feels dated, a throwback to '90s sitcoms that's out of place in Fox prime time in 2014. Maybe it would feel more at home on TV Land.
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It’s in John Mulaney’s standup bits, thus far much funnier and authentic-feeling than anything in the scripted parts of Mulaney, that you get a hint of what that might be.
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Relaxed as he seems on stage, he's just that stiff when acting. And that, unfortunately, is most of the time.
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The live studio audience is just in your face laughing at the most unfunny, hit the ground with a thud, jokes being thrown left and right by a cast that should know how to deliver their lines better.... It doesn't really get funny until the third episode
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There are also the Seinfeldean coinages and obsessions, but pushed forward and highlighted in a way that feels both self-aware and inept.
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It rips off “Seinfeld” so aggressively that in Episode 2 it even makes fun of its own plagiarism. But one thing it forgot to borrow from “Seinfeld” was intelligence.
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A sitcom that feels dated enough to have come out of the way-back machine--and that too often seems to stop time when trying to watch it.
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Of course, it all comes back to the writing, which is sometimes cringe-worthy here. There are jokes that don’t just hit the floor, they feel almost like a sitcom within a funnier film designed to parody bad TV writing. And the overdone laugh track doesn’t help.
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This contrived, airless comedy is not a good vehicle for him, nor is there much enjoyment to be found in the show's musty supporting characters.
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The cast is OK, although Mulaney tries so hard to make them hilariously wacky that each one comes off as a version of Cecily Strong’s the Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party.
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It's a laugh-free, stiffly performed weekly stroll through Mulaney's fictional life.
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This one is excruciatingly unfunny, despite the good-natured young talent at the center. The show feels thrown together, the story so choppy you’d think scenes were scrambled in the editing room.
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Think it's easy to clone Seinfeld? Fox's dreadful, embarrassing misfire Mulaney proves otherwise.
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This is a messy disposable diaper of a comedy series whose star plays himself without any idea of how to act or write the part.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 12 out of 53
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Mixed: 14 out of 53
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Negative: 27 out of 53
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Oct 6, 2014
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Oct 18, 2014
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Oct 14, 2014