Young Sheldon

The only takeaway from Young Sheldon is that his present is far more interesting than his past.

With all these elements working in its favor, scale back on the titular character and give Missy and the mom some more individual airtime and you might have something worth its timeslot.

There are few jokes to speak of, just situations that are funny or awkward--mostly awkward. ... The accents are spot-on and the lead performances are excellent, in particular Zoe Perry as the hero’s mom (a role played on the flagship series by Laurie Metcalf) and Lance Barber as his father George.

Like most new comedies this fall, Young Sheldon isn’t yet very good at conveying what it’s trying to do. But what it’s trying to do is more interesting--and potentially more artistically exciting--than whatever first impressions you might have of the show. The series is at once better and worse than what you’d expect.

Basically, the brilliant brat is amusing, but in The Big Bang Theory, what's more amusing is the people who choose to be with him; in Young Sheldon what's more amusing is the people who don't have the choice but have to be with him. The pilot for Young Sheldon isn't there yet. It's too hung up on a main character we know isn't going to and can't change for the better.

Perry and Armitage are simply wonderful together. ... [But] A mildly dispiriting sense of isolation hangs from Young Sheldon.

Young Sheldon is caught in an in-between place, destined to flummox those who’d love it the most.

There’s promising raw material in both shows (with Young Sheldon, it’s the mother/son dynamic and the chemistry between Perry and Armitage), but they have work to do refining it after these pilots.

Young Sheldon isn’t funny. (At least in the one episode made available to critics.) Its punch lines--or whatever is sitting where punch lines are supposed to be--only come from Sheldon’s inappropriate responses.