The Kids Are Alright

Kids Are Alright has some fine, funny lines and also plenty of companion story lines to follow besides Timmy’s. It’s the best of the fall season’s new comedies from a network that’s become well-practiced in turning back the clock and making shows like these tick.

If there is nothing formally to distinguish The Kids Are Alright from that mass of American sitcoms, if it is modest in its ambitious and familiar in its beats, it has energy, plenty of well-milled jokes and a fine cast of actors that sit convincingly in their parts from the start. ... What The Kids Are Alright has going for it most of all is McCormack, who makes the most of a role cut to her talents.

All told there's much to like in The Kids Are Alright, partly owing to the era being ripe with possibilities and partly because Doyle's sense of humor about his childhood rings mostly true as it reflects and finds well-earned comedy in nostalgia.

A terribly generic name for a surprisingly distinctive and personal sitcom.

It's good. Showrunner Tim Doyle, the former executive producer of "Last Man Standing," obviously knows his way around big Irish Catholic American families of the late 20th century.

Michael Cudlitz has a few nice moments as gruff but tenderhearted dad Mike, but ultimately, the show isn’t funny or heartwarming enough to overcome how familiar it feels.

The kids are a ratty little mob of thieves, snitches, and dissemblers, which can be sporadically amusing. But the plot of the pilot seems likely to be repeated even more often than the money jokes.