The Wonder Years

No one could maintain that the show deals in grueling realism. But the characters and their time do seem affectionately and thoughtfully portrayed, and genuineness along these lines is rare in TV. The Wonder Years is first-class time travel. [15 Mar 1998, p.1]

The Wonder Years is at least off to an unusually winning start.

The cast is fine and Steve Miner directs with sensitivity. There's real poignancy in the last scene between Savage and McKellar. It's a refreshingly gutsy half-hour, a look back at how things were -- and weren't. [31 Jan 1988, p.C-13]

Viewers are in for a pleasant surprise. Narrator Kevin Arnold looks back at his seventh-grade adventures with a nice combination of rosy-hued tenderness and contemporary perspective. His adventures with the class bullies, the lunchroom proctor, and his first love are familiar bits of literary nostalgia, done with a certain amount of halting charm and psychological authenticity. The jarring, but valid, note is the intrusion of the Vietnam war into the lives of the youngsters. [29 Jan 1988, p.22]

It's a likeable enough show, handsomely produced and acted and shot through with intelligence, humor and sentimentality. If it is as true to the times as it promises to be, the show could be a big hit with audiences in their mid-30s. [17 March 1998]

A pleasant but routine sitcom that uses that decade of significant social change as a hook...The Wonder Years handles its period details - clothing, hairstyles - well. The look of the '60s is rendered with an authentic, evocative feel. Like virtually every sitcom, it has its banal moments, and here and there the gags fizzle. [30 Jan 1988, p.11]