American Auto

The banter is cheerful; the will-they-or-won't-they is bit cutesy. But American Auto feels like it's closing in on something edgier.

A comedy that picks up the socially conscious sense of humor from “Superstore” and transplants it to the auto industry in Detroit. “American Auto” is a smart, promising show, presuming anyone still watches comedy on network TV.

Like Gasteyer, the rest of American Auto's cast—including Harriet Dyer (The Invisible Man) as a promiscuous publicist, Jon Barinholtz (Superstore) as a corporate heirhead and Tye White (NCIS: Los Angeles) as a bemused assembly-line worker yanked up into management so there will be at least one person there who knows something about cars—is uniformly hilarious.

Though Katherine’s people skills are sorely lacking, Gasteyer is likable and has a light touch. ... The rest of the cast – including Harriet Dyer, Tye White, and Michael Benjamin Washington – are talented, even if we’re still getting the hang of who they all are, and what their characters do.

The first episode, where the group is in the middle of the Hydra rolling crisis, doesn’t exactly reestablish what each person’s role is in the company, but definitely goes a long way of reestablishing their characters, just by showing how they’re reacting to the ever-escalating crisis. ... The second episode shows that the storytelling is still a little inconsistent.

There are plenty of funny character-based situations, and the cast is displaying good chemistry in the first two episodes. But the “been there, done that” feeling of American Auto is pervasive, even if the first two episodes have some funny moments.

Despite the laminated edginess (sex jokes, drug jokes) and timeliness (systemic racism jokes), there is something oddly antique about it and a little labored; given the faint air of mothballs, it’s not surprising to learn that the show was originally developed in 2013.