Surviving Suburbia
ABC | Release Date: April 6, 2009
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
34
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
1
Mixed:
3
Negative:
12

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Entertainment WeeklyKen Tucker
Season 1 Review: Modest but terrific, uncool but charming, this ain't According to Jim: Give it a try. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesRobert Lloyd
Season 1 Review: While its cynicism about suburbia is superficially novel, the show itself is quite old-fashioned if not old hat: lame dad, smart mom, cute child, knowing child, strange neighbor. Door here, door there, couch in the middle. Read full review
50
USA TodayRobert Bianco
Season 1 Review: Suburbia isn't the worst show you've ever seen. It may not even be the worst show you could watch tonight in this time slot. But it is among the least-memorable. Read full review
40
SlateTroy Patterson
Season 1 Review: The jokes never got any better than that, not even when the girl-moppet later waxed ecstatic about Zac Efron in High School Musical. Read full review
37
Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan
Season 1 Review: Most painful are the scenes of Steve and Anne with their daughter, Courtney (G Hannelius). They’re overacted, unfunny and, like much of the rest of the show, full of annoying cliches. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterRandee Dawn
Season 1 Review: A conventional, by-the-book alleged laugh-fest that proves just how inert and lifeless the format can be. Read full review
30
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen
Season 1 Review: It's difficult to imagine many "Dancing" viewers will be suckered into watching this unimaginative, predictable comedy series for more than the first couple of minutes. Read full review
30
The New York TimesAlessandra Stanley
Season 1 Review: The pilot is not very funny or at all surprising. Read full review
30
VarietyBrian Lowry
Season 1 Review: A show so fastidiously old-fashioned as to feel assembled from pieces of '70s family sitcoms. Read full review
30
Washington PostTom Shales
Season 1 Review: It has the air of something two teenage pals concocted while goofing around on the Internet, but the result of that would probably be fresher and bolder than Surviving Suburbia is. Read full review
30
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray
Season 1 Review: Surviving Suburbia starts out weak and declines rapidly. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily Nussbaum
Season 1 Review: In place of Saget’s real-life comic shtick, which is genuinely outrageous and dirty, we get sour, rehashed Honeymooners, misanthropy without insight. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman
Season 1 Review: It's a hackfest of cliches and obvious, unfunny jokes about kids and neighbors and marriage, with multiple cameras, a smothering laugh track, precocious kids and a salty but loving wife. Read full review
20
Orlando SentinelHal Boedeker
Season 1 Review: Saget plays a cynical dad, but his acid outlook isn't enough to juice up this blah comedy, which was originally slated for The CW. Read full review
20
Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert
Season 1 Review: Domestic comedy doesn't get more generic, more insipid, or more pointless than "Surviving Suburbia," and no, I haven't forgotten about "Gary Unmarried" or "In the Motherhood." Read full review
10
Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin
Season 1 Review: Why anybody is paying the writers and cast of Surviving Suburbia for what is essentially an amateur-hour production is just one more of those eternal television mysteries. Read full review
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