Critic Reviews

It looks like a smart embrace of Thompson’s strengths as a performer, plus a bittersweet streak of tenderness that could make the show stand out should it decide to lean in.

While Kenan may not be groundbreaking comedy on its face, it provides much needed emotional comfort and laughs and that's invaluable right now.

While it’s hardly groundbreaking, Must-See TV, it’s a warm and funny slice of comfort viewing featuring a winning performance by Thompson, strong work from the supporting cast and some admirably though-provoking, issues-based situations baked into the comedy.

Kenan Thompson makes for a strong center to what looks like will be a warm family sitcom. It has some pacing issues, but by the end of the first episode, we were confident that they would be smoothed out.

Amiable. ... Much of the action revolves around the family, who seem authentically related, but there are also excursions into manic hijinks where grown men get everything wrong and wind up breaking stuff. Anyway, it’s an easy hang.

There’s some humor to be mined in flashbacks illustrating how Kenan and his wife met on the set of a sitcom – she was only three years older than him but played his character’s mother on the TV show – but the present-day stuff is pretty unfunny, marking this series as a dud on arrival.

"Kenan" stays rooted in the here and now, showing a more vulnerable side of its star, but surrounding him with pretty stale sitcom trappings.

It’s as though “Kenan” spends so much of its energy trying to please that it forgets to tell a story. ... When he, Redd, and Johnson are allowed to simply act, it’s possible to glimpse the show “Kenan” could become, if only the folks behind the camera would all settle down.

With five characters and about four jokes, Kenan violates even the loosest Hollywood mathematical equations for success.