The joy here is watching Crystal and Gad play off each other. Their scenes together are a hoot, with each having no problem lampooning the other, or themselves, for that matter.

The Comedians is a decently prepared entree with just enough bursts of flavor.

As a team, they [Billy Crystal and Josh Gad] are better than the shows--both the real one and the fake one--they're in.

The show gets funnier--and so does the show within the show--but four episodes in, the whole setup still felt more like work than it probably should.

The Comedians is a strangely mixed bag, which works or doesn't work from moment to moment and from mode to mode.

The best cringe comedies finely tune the balance between discomfort and laughs. The Comedians needs to work on its balancing act, because there is a lot more of the former than the latter, and that turns out to be no laughing matter.

One wonders how close satire is to truth here, as this unlikely pair slogs through backstage conflict with little apparent help from director and exec-producer Larry Charles.

Some of the best comedy I have seen in a long time. All the characters have grown on me throughout the season and the story arc has been phenomenal. With stellar performances from Crystal, Gadd and others I find that I can't wait to see the next episode right after I finish one. PLEASE do season 2, this show is far better than anything on the standard networks and has been my favorite this year.

The duo of Gadd and Crystal play really well together and the show in general gives off a very real Office/Modern Family interview feel. I think the combination of Gadd and Crystal and the plot will definitely offer some extremely uncomfortable moments which will lead to some really great moments. Hopefully the surrounding cast can offer some good segments as well. Too often are people so quick to judge a show out of the gates instead of letting it really find it's legs.

I usually give a new show three episodes before I make up my mind, one way or the other. I stopped watching this show in the middle of the third episode. I rarely stop watching before the end of an episode, but by the second commercial break, I said, "I just don't CARE," and changed channels. Don't get me wrong, I really like Billy Crystal and I really like Josh Gad. And, based on the advertising for this show, I think that if they had the right vehicle, they could be really good together. But the best part about this show is the trailer.

Sometimes you see a show that's trying too hard and getting no where. That's what I thought of when watching the painfully unfunny pilot for "The Comedians." I like Billy Crystal and Josh Gad, but both deserve better than this limp concept with even more limp execution.

Billy Crystal's comedy has always been difficult to digest, if not understand. He is kind of a Jack Benny of my era. His newest entree into television is flat, not funny. The first episode was more about making faces. Jack Benny had Rochester as his foil; Josh Gad is no foil. I would suppose that Billy is trying a version of The Office, but at least in that series there was one or two smiles. With The Comedians, no smiles. But I promised to watch at least three episodes before making a decision as to add this series to my collection. At present, the vote is a strong NOT.