The Paul Reiser Show

The episodes sent to critics relied on so many middle-aged-buddies tropes (the competitiveness, the family obligations, the sudden drop-ins) that watching was just a chore.

The Paul Reiser Show is stale and dated.

I'm not saying the copycat comedy of The Paul Reiser Show isn't funny, but it doesn't compare favorably to the cracked originality of Community or 30 Rock.

Some of the humor is decent enough, but some also has the same feeling as Paul's life: We're here and there's nothing we can do about it, so we might as well tell jokes.

The show never takes off, and Reiser, best known for "Mad About You," winds up looking like a shoddy replica.

It's all incredibly broad, and lacking in any real point of view.

Much of the action arises from Reiser's inability to manage his mouth, but where David boldly owns the dark and limitless empire of his self-absorption, Reiser still wants to be the happily married Dad who may say the wrong thing once in a while but whose heart is still in the right place. A guy who's just like you, only much richer with his own show. But you can't have it both ways; just ask Larry David.

The series is better when it strays from Mr. David's format, but mostly it follows it too closely.

Despite solid work from the show's supporting cast, none of the elements of this show really work. So far, the only thing it has going for it is that it kicked "Perfect Couples" off the air.

It's hard to imagine a worse idea than The Paul Reiser Show, creating a new void to replace the void that was Perfect Couples.

Most of the material flatlines even before it begins, while never rising to the level of the HBO series to which it pays homage.

The older you are, the more you might respond to the oft-clunky, middle-aged craziness of The Paul Reiser Show.

The only funny moments came from Omid Djalili, who plays a sub-dollar-store merchant and cat-tracking hobbyist.

They bring David himself on as a kind of nudge to the ribs, as if to say, "Of course we know we're ripping off Larry's show." But what the hey? David's clearly in on the joke and is well paired with Reiser as the two of them riff off each other over lunch.

[Happy Endings] is a dream compared with the creaky overdose of Aleve that comes with The Paul Reiser Show.

The adventures aren't funny, and the friends aren't believable. But the real flaw is Reiser seems to have missed one of the central points that gives Curb its odd, counterintuitive appeal: David's willingness to paint himself in an unwaveringly horrid light.

The central failing point is that the comedy feels strained and lacks the fluid mania that makes Curb Your Enthusiasm so successful.

It suffers from predictable jokes that are more likely to conjure a hint of a smile, not a belly laugh.

It's a measure of how bad this show is that it makes performers as good as Damages' Ben Shenkman and Eastbound & Down's Andrew Daly only slightly less irritating than Reiser himself.

Nothing in the first two of these trite NBC versions makes you want to continue with the others.