Critic Reviews

It all rings just true enough to be fairly funny; the pilot episode comes across as a way to poke harmless fun across the divide [between millennials and Generation X].

The series, created by Mike Gibbons, really is funny, which is the important part. But it’s also very smart, given the generally older demographic for broadcast TV. ... The cast is great, especially Fry, but Fielding doesn’t quite have the right chemistry with McHale to be the potential frenemy love interest. She doesn’t seem quite formidable enough in the role.

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.

Jack is no Jeff, and this series, an old-school set-up-punch-line comedy, is no “Community.” That said, there are plenty of good laughs, and the show is an equal-opportunity roaster.

When its cast is interacting as characters, and not boogeymen born on the op-ed page, The Great Indoors is worth subscribing to.

The pilot is a bit clunky setting all this up (there’s also Jack’s local bartender and friend, Eddie, played by Chris Williams), but the actors are all pretty sharp, as are the cross-generational jokes.

The Great Indoors would benefit from better writing, of course.

It doesn't require an overdeveloped sense of empathy to see that, for anybody under 40, the show is going to feel less like a comedic experience than the receiving end of a gang-bang.

In the pilot, some of the lines even find their mark--assuming the intended mark are sites like BuzzFeed, Digg, Cracked, Reddit, Upworthy and so on. But the millennial jokes quickly grow stale, along with their “what is it with these kids” setups.