Kevin from Work

This was a fun binge of a show that I missed the first time around. Smart, satirical romcom writing and winning performances by a strong ensemble cast make it worth a watch.

The pre-Schitt's Creek Noah Reid show off his first-rate comedy chops, and Matt Murray as his buff bff is especially endearing and amusing.

Much like someone who's just gotten a new job, this series started out on an okay footing (not great but not bad either) and looked like it had potential. Promise, even. But much like one's working life, time strips away all the fun and optimism. I'm now past 5 episodes and have discovered that the supporting characters are either unbearably infuriating or gratingly annoying. Whatever I felt for Kevin's character right now has been reduced to pity. Pity, because he is surrounded by incredibly dysfunctional and highly unlovable characters that would fit in better on a trashy reality TV show, the worst of whom is his extremely inconsiderate hipster-cum-airhead mooch of a sister, Roxie. As a main character, Kevin himself is unmemorable, with no discerning or unique personality traits aside from being the nice guy who gets pushed around way too often. Essentially, his character lacks depth and likability.

It requires a certain finesse to have that much craziness yet still be funny... and this show hasn't gotten the formula right. The script and dialogues need an overhaul, pronto. I'd be surprised if this series lasted any longer than 2 seasons.

Sometimes I think we take ourselves too seriously, especially where comedy is concerned. If I hadn't decided a long time ago to ignore critics and judge movies and TV shows for myself, I would have missed out on a lot of great movie/television experiences.

So it's not the best comedy show out there, but honestly, true comedy in television rarely exists. Nowadays, if it isn't overtly sexual or just downright vulgar, it isn't funny. A good show doesn't always have to have flesh, sex, lies and cheating to be a good show. So over those right now. This show is the closest thing to "clean" comedy I have seen in a long time, and I sincerely hope it is renewed for another season.

I just watched the first episode, and since I won't be watching any more I'll just review that.

The main problem was that it wasn't very funny, which is always a big problem in comedies. It was all jokes I've seen before done better, with an episode on cringe comedy. I don't think I laughed out loud once.

The leads are reasonably likable, but the series is a little too fond of stereotypes, and though created by a woman indulges in slut-shaming (probably less because it objects to sexual women and more because the show is fond of easy jokes and stereotypes (and no I don't give it a pass for a weak attempt to mock TV stereotypes).

One positive thing I will mention is the movie has a couple of really clever transitions between scenes that were clearly filmed live. It's the sort of thing you'd expect from some cool indie film. There a little out of place in such a dumb episode, but I give the director credit for putting them in.

The pilot looked good,, the Idea of the series was mostly brought out of a the Rom-Com movie styles but here in a short fast comedy with a full-on powerful romantic scene in the final couple of scenes .. make you so pushed to want more of that same story and so eager to know what's to be happening next !!! you kinda feel for "Kevin" and his slap of bad luck he's getting in all of his life matters ..

Barbie Adler is a really good writer but even a better producer as she did almost 50 episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" ... i bet you could whiff a bit of that style scent and some other episodes of "My Name Is Earl" so she doesn't need my validation on her job ... but doesn't mean the script should't get any stronger if she needs the show to survive on ABC .

As for the cast they're all well picked Noah Reid with that stressed out fearful fast comedy and his face is fresh on the screen so bravo .. and indeed the comedy bits from the other characters like that trainer and the guy in the office and the boss .. i'd really love to see more effective bits from them .

So overall ,, the series started on a strong foot ,, it's Genre is comedy so the comedy needs to be flowing and not allow the romance to overpower it ... noting that the romance her is so powerful and necessary but the comedy comes first.