The Great Indoors

It’s aimed at millennials yet making fun of them constantly, and aimed at McHale fans while putting the star in his least-flattering light.

This is a hilariously staid, old-school, laugh-track sitcom about a man whose only purpose is to grit his teeth and gripe about young people. It’d be funny, if it weren’t so, well, unfunny--hokey stereotypes just don’t make for compelling comedy.

It’s a lack of humor that’s only more unbelievable the further you delve into it, and the more you realize no quality talent can make up for a lack of quality jokes.

The sitcom could have a little bit of melancholic sweetness to it, but The Great Indoors instead takes it upon itself to issue value judgments on an entire generation of people, and the result is perplexing and off-putting. It makes for a rather uncomfortable half-hour, where the audience is asked to identify with an undermining, insulting protagonist.

Jack technically is a Gen Xer. But he might as well be the Quaker Oats man in the eyes of millennials getting the same broad brush treatment. It’s a wonder they can even feed themselves in a comedy that force-feeds its concept and swallows McHale whole in the process.