The Comedy Store

The best comedians are wonderful storytellers, and “The Comedy Store” honors that with a bounty of comics telling one great story after another.

The Comedy Store is looking like a pretty comprehensive history of stand-up comedy over the last 50 years, especially comedians who made their name on the west coast. The fact that it’s directed by someone who went through the grind himself makes it all the more intimate and surprising.

It's a five-hour commercial for The Comedy Store, but darned if it isn't funny and entertaining.

Like a comedy club roster overstuffed with comics of varying skills and styles, the docuseries never settles into the groove of a single tour de force set. The stories are great. ... But The Comedy Store never finds a way to tie all these individuals and their stories into a cohesive portrait. ... Binder’s undeniably watchable series sets out to craft monuments to a place and a woman he reveres equally.

Had “The Comedy Store” been more focused on story and less on free-wheeling chats, it might have accurately captured The Store as Binder and so many other comedians see it. But, as such, what the viewer is continually told was wild and reckless, more often than not, comes off as mild and feckless.