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Critic Reviews
- Critic score
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- By date
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Brimming with cockeyed echoes of everything from "Raising Arizona" to "King of the Hill," NBC's best new comedy since "Seinfeld" is that rare chucklehead treat: it's both wildly irreverent and blessed with a cheerful, endearingly upbeat nature.
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My Name Is Earl rampages like a bull in a politically correct china shop.
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One of this season's most tasty and twisted TV treats.
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Jason Lee excels as scruffy Earl -- he's a Jed Clampett for the new millennium.
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One of the best comedies in years.
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The fall's funniest sitcom.
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The NBC sitcom is so unpretentious and original, it will probably win you over on its own sweet merits.
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The buzz is that "My Name Is Earl" is good, and the truth is that it's better than the buzz.
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Watching "My Name Is Earl" unfold is like taking a hydrofoil ride and flying so fast above the ordinary surface of television life that when the show ends you feel dazed and amazed for hours afterward.
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The casting is for awesome, flat-out too-good-for-TV acting.
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Earl shares the look and heavily narrated sound of Arrested Development, but it has its own scruffy comic tone.
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Lee may be a tad too smart to embody this reformed dimwit, but his smooth charm makes Earl go down as easy as a tallboy. [23 Sep 2005, p.82]
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"My Name Is Earl" is a good show that doesn't quite have the feel of being the next "Seinfeld" or "Cheers." But like Lee's Earl, Garcia's feel-good concept is strangely effective. If not brilliant, it is ambitious, and it is definitely funny.
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What's so wonderful about My Name Is Earl is that it's a comedy with its heart in the right place and everything else gleefully in the gutter.
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Manages to be crude and sweet, smart and splendidly stupid, all at the same time.
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Cute and smart, "Earl's" pilot pulled a coup unheard of in recent network comedy memory, juggling un-P.C. humor with a winning sweetness.
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Offbeat and utterly charming.
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"My Name Is Earl" isn't the best comedy around, but it's pretty darn good.
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The premise is gimmicky, but based on the promising first two episodes, Lee's infinite list of wrongdoings should provide many seasons' worth of amiable comedy.
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Earl is unashamedly crude, at times downright stupid in its lowlife caricatures, yet it's all so cheerfully endearing that you can't help but be won over by its lowbrow high jinks.
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Bad taste meets good writing.
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"My Name Is Earl" is cheeky, inventive and often bewitching.
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Watching "My Name Is Earl," you feel like you're in a movie, or at least a movie trailer. In ways more good than bad, it's immediately comprehensible.
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Congenial.
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Though the characters are quite different, "Earl" somehow brings to mind NBC's "Ed," perhaps because both shows feature a cast of oddballs and are ultimately uplifting, heartwarming portraits of people trying to do good by making a fresh start.
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We have to put up with characters whose brainpower compares unfavorably with a fire hydrant, but Lee is funny even in a gay bar.
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My Name Is Earl is not a stupid sitcom - that is what makes its sexist and homophobic jokes so maddening.
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Lee may lack the essential sweetness, or pathos, to make Earl ever seem like more than a cute variation on those lovable, loquacious losers who tumble, beer can spurting, through Coen brothers movies. [3 Oct 2005, p.39]
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The show is charmless and patronizing, and as refreshing as dust.
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Amounts to a character study of a character not worth studying.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 195 out of 219
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Mixed: 6 out of 219
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Negative: 18 out of 219
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Mr.FurleyDec 15, 2009Very funny show. Love all the guest stars and zany plots. Incomparable. Ralph is one of my favorite characters.
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Jun 13, 2011Very original idea and great plots and jokes makes this a great show.
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Mar 12, 2011This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.