Animal Control

The series premiere offers audiences a good peek into what is expected and makes its heart apparent from the get-go, starting off strong with a solid dose of humor that is engaging and continues very well into its subsequent episodes.

Animal Control has a strong ensemble, and characters that are inherently funny without the need to spew gags. That is very evident in the second season, even after you get past the very funny view of drunken raccoons.

Animal Control‘s first couple of episodes elicited some big laughs and has already established an ensemble with some good chemistry. There’s nowhere to go here but up.

“Animal Control” doesn’t break the mold (network TV sitcoms rarely do these day), but it understands that the quality of a hit sitcom is often determined by the depth of its ensemble. ... After three episodes, I found myself engaged with the characters on “Animal Control” enough to want to know what they’ll get up to next.

Animal Control may not reinvent the wheel, but it does feature an inviting cast whose ensemble chemistry improved over the course of the previous season, reliably strong characterizations, and a good sense of comic timing. Though the show doesn’t always take advantage of its joke-machine potential, the sarcastic one-liners and witty repartee go down smoothly.

While the jokes are indeed silly, there’s an edge to Frank’s insistence that feels unpleasant. As Fred, Rowland is an appealing presence, and I also liked Vella Lovell as the pair’s boss. Much of what the animal control does is, in this show’s telling, low-stakes and charmingly offbeat, making room for workplace-comedy bits that could as easily be at an elementary school or a paper supplier. Which is why it feels urgent that the show recalibrate the Frank character.

It’s just not that interesting, or at least this critic didn’t find it to be so. Animal Control is competent but not spirited. ... Its humor is pitched right down the middle, with few attempts to push the boundaries toward outrageousness or nastiness or pure goofiness. There’s no single personality big enough to pop off the screen, and no zingers sharp enough to get quoted or memed into the cultural consciousness.