The Odd Couple (2015)

Maybe this will all work out. We’d like it to. Right now, the show could use a little couples therapy.

There is an uneasiness to [Perry's] performance--in some scenes he looks startled, even frightened--that makes it hard to play off Mr. Lennon, who seems very comfortable as a nervous nelly. That chemistry could come with time, but even if the show flops, it’s an interesting experiment.

Once Matthew Perry and (especially) Thomas Lennon kick in as the slovenly Oscar Madison and the fastidious Felix Unger, respectively, their timing and physicality, and some tart writing, pull the show up like a water-skier behind a motorboat.

For The Odd Couple to work, you have to believe there are moments when these roommates want to throttle each other. This version presents a mild bromance. Nice for them, not so much for us.

There is some chemistry between Perry and Lennon that I’d expect to grow on later episodes. But, it’s tough to say since comedies need some time for the cast to find their footing.

The new sitcom is formulaic, with one joke following another punctuated by a laugh track--even when the jokes aren’t funny, and many of them are not.

The Odd Couple is genial--but not hilarious--multi-cam sitcom business as usual.

Lennon, who brings yoga (and cello) skills to Felix, is terrific. Perry may have further to go, perhaps because the writing for Oscar seemed muddled, as if someone had actually worried that viewers wouldn't like him enough.

22 minutes is not enough to say. (Networks really need to be more generous with episodes, especially during midseason.) If the pilot (written by Perry and co-executive producer Joe Keenan) is passable, my guess would be that the pedigree and talent involved will overcome the shortcomings and give viewers something better soon enough.

Their [Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon's] Odd Couple feels like the kind of time-filling time killer that's chasing viewers to other options.

This latest production is not completely terrible; it just underscores the sad state of affairs on network television, where programmers are seriously hurting for a fresh idea.

Still, even in the first episode, it’s clear that better writing--make that funnier writing--is needed if whatever nascent chemistry Perry and Lennon have is going to amount to much.

The show will rise or fall on the chemistry of Lennon and Perry. Watching the two of them trade fastidious/sloppy, healthnut/unhealthy barbs is fun for a while. But that's the highlight. The scenes tend to stall when the boys aren't sparring, with the exception of Yvette Nicole Brown who pops as Oscar's put-upon assistant.

The result is tiresome and forgettable, which makes it perfect filler for CBS’ Thursday-night lineup of popular but moronic sitcoms.

While some jokes land, and some characters hint at what they might do once they get something to do, the show--which is to say, the pilot--never really lights up.

Here it is, uncooked at the center.

The current Couple seems listless compared to the '70s model, so far lacking the sharp tension that made Klugman and Randall so interesting to watch together.

The basic problem with the pilot of The Odd Couple is its best bits, including the “F.U.” bit, are literally recycled from the original. It’s impossible to say how the show will progress from here, but it’s hard to believe that it will ever feel anything other than remarkably familiar and derivative of better properties with better casts.

The unimaginative result is less a sitcom than a cover band performance, mostly competent but entirely unnecessary.

There is one genuinely laugh-out-loud sight gag at the opener’s very end, although that probably comes too late to spray enough air freshener over this revival to cause Felix to honk and wheeze.

While Perry is either coasting or simply having trouble getting back into the rhythms of multi-camera comedy after years of doing single-cam, the other actors (including Yvette Nicole Brown as Oscar's assistant and Lindsay Sloane as a neighbor whose neuroses line up neatly with Felix's) are all doing their best. But the material all feels like Daily simply dusted off some of Marshall's old scrips without thinking about how any of this stuff would play in 2015.

There is a kind of bad show that might be the saddest kind of bad show. It’s the show that strands talented actors known for being funny on a sitcom that isn’t funny at all.

This show does nothing interesting with the premise, relying almost entirely, it seems, on the brand to break out.

There's not a lot to love in this strained, often deafening update of the Neil Simon perennial. [16 Feb-1 Mar 2015, p.15]

Lazy, arguably, would be excusable if this new Odd Couple was funny. Though the Very Enthusiastic laugh track might suggest otherwise, this is not a funny show. It is antiquated and broad in a way that’s actively off-putting.

The new Odd Couple is sad because it speaks so directly to the general lack of imagination in network comedy.

The new versions of Oscar and Felix feel like caricatures, whereas the old versions felt like characters (as in, “what a character!”). The new guys are phonies, a checklist of qualities instead of the grab bag of inconsistencies that make fictional beings feel real.

The result is a laugh-free, thought-free enterprise that wastes talent, time and the benefits of a Big Bang lead-in.

Nothing about this latest re-do offers any hope for its future.