The Great Indoors

McHale, as he proved on “Community,” has great timing, and he’s aided by his office colleagues, especially the delightfully deadpan Ko and Fry, who combines sweet and weird. With its office-as-asylum atmosphere, Great Indoors echoes “NewsRadio,” not a bad influence.

Neither [Man With a Plan or The Great Indoors] is groundbreaking or particularly exciting; both are quite likable and solidly constructed.

If The Great Indoors can maintain a balance of smart, and not tired, barbs lobbed between “the human version of dial-up” and the “stupid twentysomethings” with whom he must now work, there surely is a show here.

There some modest laughs wrung out of this generational clash.

Whether Roland's cuddling a bear cub in Thursday's pilot or joking with Jack about the best ways to drink your own urine, he [Stephen Fry], and his chemistry with McHale, are the least tired things about a show that's still finding its way in a brave-ish new world.

This is a hilariously staid, old-school, laugh-track sitcom about a man whose only purpose is to grit his teeth and gripe about young people. It’d be funny, if it weren’t so, well, unfunny--hokey stereotypes just don’t make for compelling comedy.

The problem is that the show and its humor are relics of an increasingly unsuccessful formula for TV comedy.