RJBose

This show is a tiresome mash-up of over-used television show and movie platitudes masquerading as plot. The actress playing the main character of "Emily" (a young marketing executive from Chicago dispatched to Paris) clearly honed her skills watching those kiddie shows on the Disney Channel, where "acting" consists only of eye-rolls, head-tilts, raised eyebrows, and overwrought facial expressions.

The save-the-day pitch to the key client? Lifted from any random "Bewitched", with a dash if "Mad Men".

The handsome meet-cute neighbor? We all know that he will become the romantic interest (but, as we also all know, not before an awkward discovery on Emily's part that he already has a girlfriend).

The "cool" crazy-rich clearly out-of-place and contrived Chinese friend? See "Crazy Rich Asians".

Throw in some predictable stereo-types about French people, mix with casual sex, and you are left with essentially a well-photographed, but ultimately unwatchable waste of time.

I am married to a Finnish woman, and travel to Scandinavia every summer, and so am very familiar with Scandinavian lifestyles and practices and the challenges of being an American abroad visiting family, not speaking the language (though I can speak some Norwegian). I am also familiar with clever, original, funny television shows, and this is not one of them; (yes, we get it Greg- your sister is Amy Poehler).

The Swedish countryside and lifestyle depicted are very accurate, as are some of the stereotypical characters and situations presented. I have no doubt that this show was a hit in Sweden, and perhaps even across the Gulf of Bothnia in Finland where the same punch lines could be successfully delivered. For an American audience, however, this is just another lame knock-off of an overly familiar theme (doesn't even "Little Steven" have some show about being in a witness protection program just across the border in Lillehammer, Norway?)

What I found most tedious, however, beyond the lack of originality or real humor in the very predictable set-ups and contrived circumstances, is that the lead character (executive producer Amy's brother) seems to be doing a second rate impersonation of just about every sad sack Ben Stiller character we have ever seen, becoming increasingly visibly flustered in uncomfortable and subsequently often humiliating, circumstances, e.g.throwing up over the side of a small motorboat because he gets seasick on the 20-minute boat ride- (hilarious!). It gets tiresome with Mr. Stiller, who is sometimes quite funny nonetheless. This convention, and dragged out by Mr. Poehler, however, seems to be the one long, unfunny one trick pony in this lame storyline.

Welcome to Sweden, indeed; I suspect it will be a mercifully short visit.

What started out as an unoriginal and generally unfunny show has now sunk into abject unwatchability. The premise of an adult child moving in with a parent is well worn, and there is nothing new or original that "Jennifer falls" adds to this genre. In fact, there is nothing new or original (or particularly funny) about this show at all. The characters are unlikable and unfunny, and the scripts have collapsed into boring platitudes in a desperate attempt to substitute vulgarity for wit.

A well-traveled path, instead of having Jennifer- an ostensible fired investment banking wiz- come up with a financial strategy to help her brother's bar, or otherwise demonstrate competence or generate some interest, the show lazily mimics the speaking to the camera tactic of the truly well-written "Modern Family" while the main characters merrily discuss sexual encounters "in the summer of sophomore year" (i.e. at age 15) and defecating on their sexual partner's doorsteps as adults, apparently in some sort of retribution.

Jennifer has indeed fallen, and she can't get up.