Up All Night

There's a sweet, good-hearted minuteness of observation to the show, which manages to work in middle-of-the-night wakings and diaper changes without going for obvious gags.

This is not a show that wants to be analyzed. Rather, it demands that you enjoy it. And there is plenty of humor to mine in the premise.

The interplay between Arnett and Applegate has an instant crackle to it, especially when they argue about which one of them got the least sleep during Amy's latest tearful night. Just as one's interest in Up All Night's domestic cliches may flag, "SNL" alum and "Bridesmaids" co-star Maya Rudolph is here to lift the show up several notches as Reagan's boss.

Up All Night is adorable without being cute. [3 Oct 2011, p.41]

What Up All Night has over other baby-rearing shows is a refreshing irreverence.

The changes enhance the comic balance between the reality-based humor of a young couple coping with their new baby and their evaporating youth, and the "SNL"-sketch-like satire of a powerful and powerfully self-involved talk show hostess.

Christina Applegate and Will Arnett have nice chemistry as rookie parents struggling to scale back on their hardworking, hard-partying ways in Up All Night, a largely fresh, irreverent look at child rearing.

Spivey gives her stars so much better material stemming from the parents' self-doubt about everything from doing right by their daughter to still rocking a tight skirt (Reagan) to buying the right cheese at the overwhelmingly huge supermarket (Chris).

A well-rounded, nicely mature comedy.

It's by no means a flawless show, and there's no certainty that even a trio as strong as this one can float the series by sheer force of will, but if the last 10 minutes are any indication, Up All Night may just find itself the most elusive trophy of all: an audience.

Though the Up All Night pilot falls short of great hilarity, the series demonstrates considerable potential.

Rudolph is the wacky comic icing on what otherwise is a more grounded and endearingly realistic comedy about two exhausted new parents (Christina Applegate and Will Arnett) who are still adjusting to the loss of their it's-all-about-me, hard-partying lifestyle to make way for adorable baby Amy.

Applegate and Will Arnett, who plays her husband, Chris, are very good, which is no surprise. It's nice to see Arnett playing something other than an emotionally stunted man-child, and if the pilot for Up All Night didn't make me guffaw all that much, it passed by pleasantly and it was good to see that creator Emily Spivey was able to wring comedy from the new-parent situation without using the same dozen baby jokes we've all seen 200 times before.

[Rudolph's] new character brings a wackier element to the show, which undermines the fine authenticity that Spivey initially set up. Now Rudolph has a more expandable role, I suppose, but she is also less connected to the other characters. The whole Ava talk show business feels like it belongs in a more satirical sitcom of its own.

What you have is a comedy with three very talented, funny leads, with a premise that lends itself well to stories and jokes, and execution that isn't quite there yet.

The makeover has helped morph the series from unwatchable and unfunny into a witty sitcom about people who are desperate not to turn into TV sitcom parents.

While there's definite potential in the show, there were a few things about it that just didn't work.

It's a familiar concept that elicits some minor laughs.

Right now, Up All Night is the TV equivalent of a glass of warm milk.

Too many of the lines are witlessly vulgar (A "mug of butt"? Really?), and too few are funny.

Up All Night could use more backup players and more imaginative writing. Most of all, the show has to get over its fear of offending.

A cute little closing segment isn't enough to offset all the forced comedy preceding it.

Skilled as Applegate, Arnett and Rudolph are at making us laugh, they need dimension.

It's supposedly a wry look at the perils and pressures of parenthood. But really it's just a collection of tired cliches, reworked with weird grimaces and funny accents a la a really bad Saturday Night Live skit.