- Critic Score
- Most active
- Publication
- Most clicked
-
70Then the second episode, and then the third, come along, and 1600 Penn evolves into a surprisingly likable single-camera comedy.
-
58Your enjoyment of the show will hinge on how much you can stomach the antics of the First Screw-Up.
-
63It's not ground-breaking or cutting-edge, and it's by no means the funniest show on TV. But it has the potential to get more lovable with time if viewers vote to give it a chance.
-
67The series starts wobbly but improves with each of the episodes [seen so far]. [21 Dec 2012, p.62]
-
67Like many a new comedy--and new presidential administration--it needs a little time to get settled in before we can expect it to really make its mark.
-
40[Josh Gad's] an adroit actor, and his breathy, singsongy way with Skip feels original, until it feels tiring--as that there's just a lot of him here. He obscures the view, or becomes it, and he can make the rest of the show seem sort of beside the point.
-
50As funny as 1600 Penn can be, after a while the laughs grow fewer and further between. And the misfires are more frequent and painful.
-
201600 Penn mines none of the more subtle and satisfying possibilities of poking fun at a staid institution. It's more like a drug-fueled "Saturday Night Live" sketch that won't end.
-
30The show is "clever" in a way that makes me mourn how far standards of cleverness have fallen. If it's the best new comedy that NBC has in the pipeline, the network is in more trouble than anyone knew.
-
50Problem is in 1600 Penn they are shooting for "Animal House" in the White House but too often end up with nobody home.
-
42This is a very good cast laboring through terribly weak material.
-
25[Skip's] part is virtually unplayable, especially since Bill Pullman and Jenna Elfman, as the first couple, give restrained, relatively natural performances, and Skip's siblings are written more along the lines of Modern Family. [14 Jan 2013, p.52]
-
50The set-in-the-White House comedy starts off more annoying than funny in its Monday debut, overwhelmed by a single character, first son Skip (Josh Gad), a perennial college student and first-class screwup. Over the next couple of episodes the show becomes a little less grating and, occasionally, mildly amusing.
-
701600 Penn has the unfortunate habit of milking every joke, even the most artificial and obvious ones. And its absurdist humor is hit-or-miss at best. And yet it has an undeniable charm, however superficial and ingratiating.
-
60When Skip is used more as a garnish and not the focus, his character is less annoying and more amusing.
-
801600 Penn's tone may be apolitical, but it is also very funny.
-
751600 Penn may not be as sophisticated as the hysterical HBO series "Veep," but it's still pretty funny when all the cylinders are firing.
-
60Cute, initially, the bull-in-a-china-shop premise wears a little thin until you realize there are others in the family capable of embarrassing dad, too.
-
50It's not that these are shoddily crafted personalities, it's that their predicaments have been done to death, and frankly, executed with much more thoughtfulness on other shows.
-
63Loud and silly as it is, the show also manages to create and define its characters skillfully.
-
80By the second episode, 1600 Penn neatly has found its compass on how to be a show about the first family and how to define the ensemble.
-
60All in all, Skip, an unkempt ball of puppyish energy to whom the writers feed a wealth of good material, is by far the best thing about this show. Jenna Elfman is all right as first lady and the rest of the cast hovers around the edges not making much of an impression.
-
601600 Penn has charm and some funny riffs, but it's a 2013 sitcom that at times seems like it was written in 1983.
-
60The broad comedy in 1600 Penn derives from familiar sitcom clichés being magnified by the Oval Office fishbowl. It's a gimmick that may have trouble holding up to a second term, though the cast is certainly game.
-
42There's nothing to get outraged about, unless you want to rail against substandard comedy.
-
50A sitcom that has moved from agreeably silly to disagreeably dumb, a regression no network should want to see.
-
50The series doesn't generate nearly enough highlights to merit a filibuster-proof yea vote, much less a ticker-tape parade.
-
601600 Penn comes off as a fairly formulaic yet occasionally bright return to an old premise.