Younger

The show's crisp, witty dialogue is mostly egalitarian among the ages, and everyone's great at working the words.

There's merry if repetitive humor in the nuances of [Sutton Foster's character's] physical and digital transformation. [3 Apr 2015, p.58]

For those of us 40 and older, it’s a bit of a hoot watching Foster navigate these waters, from learning how to use Twitter to deciphering texts IRL (in real life) to explaining away those crow’s feet, among other things that aren’t mentionable in a family newspaper. But it’s the personal relationships--with the hunky Tortorella and with Duff--that hold the most interest here.

Liza’s wonderfully written interactions with each of these characters, especially the women, will undoubtedly draw you in and keep you watching.

It’s as though this show wants to set up hurdles for itself to overcome. Happily, it does. Much of this is due to Foster, who radiates so much eager energy, you have no trouble buying the premise of the sitcom.

The cast, and Star’s breezy but never dumb writing, makes Younger an entertaining half-hour comedy that feels far more mature than most rookies out there.

Younger sells it through Foster’s agile charm and its refusal to make any of its characters into punching bags. (TV Land sent out the full season for review; I’ve seen five episodes.) Like its protagonist, the ideas behind Younger have been around the block a few times. But it doesn’t show its age at all.

There are a lot of jokes about Brooklyn, sex and millennial entitlement, but the underlying sensibility echoes that of “Sex and the City.” It’s a lighthearted but wistfully knowing look at the gender imbalances and generational rifts that make life hard for even fabulous women.

Younger, with its fizzy sensibility and sexual frankness, is a not-so-veiled attempt to lure younger audiences to the network, but there's a caginess to the humor, poking fun at both the younger generation, whose self-worth seems irrevocably tied to the strength of their Instagram following, and the pop cultural obliviousness of Liza's generation.

The writing is sharp, funny, surprising and also very true to the characters Star has created. As funny as it is, it’s actually more mature than the writing on “Sex and the City.”

It lacks the nuance and cleverness that Star brought to Sex and the City while also missing all the chaotic joy that Broad City and Girls find in this slice of millennial life.... That’s not to say it isn’t compulsively watchable.

There's a sweetness to the series, an almost admiration for the various crummy behaviors.

The series tries a little hard at first. You can hear its knees creak, its joints pop.... But once we are out in open water, things improve; the show grows across its 12 first-season episodes into a comfortably familiar and appealing sort of TV-season-length rom-com.

[Sutton Foster is] charming and so is this show, whose entire first season I scooped up in a few sittings.

Foster makes for an energetic and engaging lead, never missing a beat; the rest of the cast is equally snappy-snippy, thanks to scripts and story lines that keep everyone prancing along like trained poodles.

Inevitably, there are stereotypical aspects on both sides of the age gap--from the flakiness of Kelsey’s contemporaries to Diana too often coming across as a bitter scold--but the series seldom pitches so far across those lines as to be unable to find its way back.

It's in no way essential, but if you like the performers involved, you will be okay if you pretend that the pilot doesn't exist.

Shot single-camera style with no laugh track (a blessing on a network where originals are often really loud), Younger feels far more grounded than its premise would suggest.