The Michael J. Fox Show

The Michael J. Fox Show (which debuts with back-to-back episodes) is never cloying or condescending. And any time it seems to be veering toward disease-of-the-week-movie territory, you can be sure that lampoon is on the way.

The show’s chilled-out confidence (as if it were starting its second season rather than its first) is appealing, and the cast’s Swiss-watch timing makes even lackluster exchanges crackle, but The Michael J. Fox Show’s selling point is its multivalent comic richness.

It's shot single-camera, mockumentary style like "Modern Family," but the set-ups aren't as outrageous and the writing, while funny, is not quite as sharp.

The ingredients are there; they just need more seasoning.

It's more likable than funny, but it has a very clear sense of what it wants to do and how it wants to frame its star.... There's abundant chemistry between Fox and Brandt, between Fox and Juliette Goglia as his teenage daughter, and between Fox and Wendell Pierce as his boss at the TV station.

But where the storytelling seems occasionally forced—intent on ending every episode with a moment of heart, no matter how unearned—the dialogue is weird and funny. With time for the stories to settle down and match the performances, the series should find a nice groove.

The Michael J. Fox Show tries really hard to be as warm as a cup of cocoa yet hilariously irreverent. Maybe too hard.... On the plus side, Fox still oozes self-deprecating charm, and I love the sweet and playful chemistry he has with Brandt. Also, Pierce is a hoot as the smooth con man of a boss. More of that, please.

Mike Henry is as funny, emotionally open and inspiring as his alter ego.... The pilot feels more like a promise of intention than proof of concept. [20/27 Sep 2013, p.144]

Though the choice to have the characters speak to the camera feels a little tired (and the plotting to have it continue past the premiere is quite contrived), the show is quite possibly one of the funniest new comedies of the season, full of small moments that lead to big laughs.

Mike’s family is perfectly balanced. Everyone works, down to even guest performers. The structure of The Michael J. Fox Show is definitely simple and safe, which many will see as cliched.

Standard sitcom issue--yet they feel convincingly bound to each other from the start.

The show's still playing with the balance between work and home, but that's what the time's for. And what's there right now is definitely worth watching.

Despite a cliché video-journal gimmick that has everyone talking to the camera Modern Family style, which ends up belaboring each point, and schmaltzy life lessons ("Sometimes you underestimate the ones you love") wrapping each of the three episodes I've screened, the Fox Show has an appealingly unforced rhythm to its humor.

A show with broad appeal led by a still sparkly and high-strung Fox that is pretty good, a shade too predictable and manipulative to be excellent, but neither excruciating nor embarrassing.

The Michael J. Fox Show is not only an enjoyable TV comedy about a likeable guy in a likeable family, it’s not only a step toward wider recognition of a specific disease and of disabilities in general, it’s the return of a primetime icon after years away battling Parkinson’s.

The Michael J. Fox Show shows signs of deteriorating into a too sitcom-y enterprise with occasional flashes of smart writing and situations.

Fox aside, the show boasts some strong performances which should hold it up through the weaker material, for a time at least.

Unfortunately, having successfully created Mike and his family, Fox seems to have no idea what to do with them. The second episode and a later one made available for preview that features Anne Heche as Mike's rival at work fall back on what can be labeled the Comedy of Sitcom Stupidity.

The pilot is clever in a number of places and the banter is quick.... Like Modern Family, which it seems to be aping, The Michael J. Fox show is big on hugs and syrup in the end notes, but that can be overlooked if what precedes it has enough right angles. Unfortunately, the second episode--which airs directly after the pilot tonight--is a complete and utter mess.

The Michael J. Fox Show, which marks his welcome return to a regular network series, isn’t an instant classic. But it does a lot of things right.

This comedy has its moments, particularly in scenes featuring Ms. Brandt and Mr. Fox, but too often the stories, as in Thursday’s 9:30 episode feel like they’re straight out of Sitcom 101.

For a fleeting moment, the show hints it might venture into some saucy territory. Then it gets all “Family Ties” saccharine and goes in for the squishy hug.

But all too often, [exploitation is] what this semiautobiographical series feels like.

The three episodes NBC screened, especially the two past the pilot, aren’t bad, really; they’re studiously un-bad to the point of blandness. The supporting characters are thin types.

It’s nice to see Fox in primetime again, and he isn’t the problem with the show. The problem is the writing, which is domestic comedy at its laziest. You’ve seen this material before, and before that, too.

Very little that Mr. Fox, or anyone else, does in The Michael J. Fox Show, which starts on Thursday night, will force you to laugh. Everything about his return to sitcom stardom is mild, tucked in, determined not to offend.

Between Leigh's sexually graphic ventures into young-adult lit and Ian's misguided search for an intern for his practically nonexistent web startup, it seems like many of the subplots are going to prove more interesting, if not more adventurous, than the main story arc.

Harmless as it is, The Michael J. Fox Show remains a pretty thin concoction, built heavily around the appeal of its leading man.

Get past the mawkishness (if you can) and there's a sweetness here, and geniality. The Michael J. Fox Show needs to be much more, but love is hard to shake.

It's a strained, generic affair.