This Is Us (from "Crazy, Stupid, Love" screenwriter Dan Fogelman) methodically weaves four seemingly disparate stories into a believable and emotional whole through tiny telling details, relatable moments, and conversations and confrontations that are funny, tender or painful, or all three at once.

It’s a unique blend with four very distinct but compelling stories, proving there’s plenty of drama to be mined from real life. It doesn’t hurt that each of the actors is perfectly cast in his or her role, driving home the beautifully written scenes that often pose pertinent and universally relatable questions.

There's so much, and so many, to love in This IS Us, which even at its corniest somehow becomes four-hanky popcorn TV. [10-23 Oct 2016, p.18]

This Is Us has settled on an effective solution: It has made characters who are flawed and surprising, and therefore relatably human.

Saccharine by jaded prime-time standards, this show still just might be the kind of sentiment lots of viewers crave at the moment.

Once you start looking at the individual characters’ storylines--Jack and Rebecca are going to be parents, Kate struggles with her weight, Kevin wants his acting career to have meaning, Randall tracks down his biological father-- they feel less like actual stories than like placeholders, characters to be filled in later. It’s hard to hold too much of this against the show when the characters are played by great actors, and when the pilot has a script as emotionally adroit [as] the one crafted by Dan Fogelman.

It’s deceptively difficult to build a surprising and complete story in just 40 minutes with so many characters. Yet This Is Us manages to both craft an intimate series of portraits and stitch them together. ... But at the same time, waves of cloying sentiment threaten to submerge everything.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Edulcorated, forseeable family story. Full of " sweets and sad " coincidences. It does not seem to have been thought for 2016 people . I gave it up at episode 4.

Predictable yet sweet family story with some really good acting and some good characters (Toby is best) which started out interesting but lost steam by December and has been flat since. January episodes offer great contrast with pilot and early episodes. Writers seem out of steam at this point. Way too much stuff from the past suggesting there is no material for the present. And what was that last New Age retreat experience about? I wish you luck, maybe there is still time to turn it around?

I'm always looking for more down to earth shows that are more representative of reality as opposed to over the top drama, but I found myself immediately disappointed with this is us. The formula is essentially to give us an unfortunate or sad, yet more or less relatable situation and then romanticize it in such a way that it depicts it as part of a harmonious world where the good comes equally with the bad. In other words, "feel sad, but cheer up; because it's the bad that makes life beautiful". The result is a show that's both melodramatic and lofty in presuming to offer the audience with significant insights through dreamy hyperbole and emotionally poignant resolutions. It undeniably hits the feels for a number of people, but I firmly believe it to be a stretch to call the show an accurate depiction of real life for the majority of individuals. Not all hardships in life have silver linings. There are dark and unpleasant aspects of the human condition that This is Us fails to acknowledge beyond a flippant, cursory glance. The show continuously recedes into a display of fantasy rather than illustrate a world that can be often times cruel and unforgiving for no meaningful rhyme nor reason.

"This is Us" should be called "What group do we have left to shamelessly pander to?" Critics are such lame ass, group thinking, mindless, NPR listening losers. Its funny because they call themselves 'critc'' but critical thinking is usually the last thing on their agenda. This show is hardcore, offensively hackneyed poop.