Playing House

This little sitcom reminds you how rare female friendship is on prime time TV--and just how much fun it can be.

The pair has recast the concept and their chemistry into a suburban setting that feels fresher and friendlier, truly finding its footing at 10:30 with Sloane (and those gnomes).

While that loving relationship between these two women is Playing House’s strength, to unlock its potential, and go beyond delightful sitcom, it needs to be about more than that, and there’s certainly potential for that growth.

The show is light with sharp baby kicks of meanness. [5 May 2014, p.46]

When the material is overly familiar--Emma running into her high school boyfriend, the predictably quirky characters who populate a small town--their timing lifts it up a few notches.

As at the Friars, the humor gets low at times, but the characters themselves do not; which is not to say that they keep their dignity. The conversation is long on riffing and syntactically comical constructions.

In its first two episodes, Playing House does a nice job slowly building out its world and introducing an assortment of amusing, oddball characters.

Expectations couldn't be lower for this unrequested reunion, which is why it comes as such a nice surprise that Playing House, while hardly anything new, provides a much happier showcase for these gals' effortlessly snarky chemistry.

While St. Clair and Parham play well off each other, they also affect almost the exact same comedic voice. In other words, there’s no Lucy and Ethel in this pairing, with each being a little bit of both.

Parham and St. Clair continue to play well off each other, but the writing is tighter this time around and the ensemble cast is better [than "Best Friends Forever"].

As in the earlier show [NBC's "Best Friends Forever"], both Parham and St. Clair create likable characters we wouldn’t mind following through strange, poignant, absurd, comic and ultimately endearing adventures. But those adventures get diluted here, at least on the back-to-back opening night episodes, by heavy-handed scenes you don’t expect or want in a USA show.