Last Man Standing (2011)
ABC | FOX | Release Date: October 4, 2007
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
37
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
10
Negative:
16

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Kathryn VanArendonkSep 25, 2018
Season 7 Review: It’s goofy. It is not Earth-shattering. ... Last Man Standing has chosen to make a swerve toward vulnerability and self-knowledge rather than following the Roseanne path and tripling down on implied racism and curdled resentment. It makes me hope the series has the potential to be more dynamic and thoughtful than I’d given it credit for. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyKristen BaldwinSep 24, 2018
Season 7 Review: Those who found Last Man funny when Obama was president will no doubt find it funny today. The rest of us can't argue with Mike's command to his family. "We treat each other with dignity and respect, because that's who we are." [28 Sep 2018, p.44] Read full review
63
NewsdayVerne GaySep 26, 2018
Season 7 Review: Last Man Standing is that unusual red fish in a sea crowded with blue ones, and it never lets you forget that. As always and as expected, Mike gets the best lines, the easiest put-downs and literally the last word. Read full review
63
USA TodayRobert BiancoOct 11, 2011
Season 1 Review: It's all standard stuff, but outside of the tiresome, heard-it-all-before rants, it's not without its appeal. Read full review
60
PopMattersMichelle WelchOct 13, 2011
Season 1 Review: While it returns Allen to a Mr. Fix-it style of parenting and some broad he-man comedy, the show offers fewer grunts and more shrieking female voices. Read full review
58
IndieWireBen TraversSep 28, 2018
Season 7 Review: Tim Allen’s revived comedy is exactly what it always was: a predictable, kind of lazy sitcom built on easy jokes and the odd, occasionally misguided rantings of a middle-aged, wealthy white guy. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyKen TuckerOct 10, 2011
Season 1 Review: [Tim Allen'd] be insufferable and unbelievable (even this doofus would know what Glee is), except Allen has the chops to make a studio audience laugh just through intonation and timing. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleDavid WiegandOct 11, 2011
Season 1 Review: The only differences between Last Man Standing and the old "Home Improvement" are that Allen's name is Mike this time, his job is working for a sporting goods company as opposed to a hardware manufacturer, and his three kids are teenage daughters. Read full review
50
Zap2it (Inside the Box)Rick PorterOct 11, 2011
Season 1 Review: It still carries a decidedly throwback vibe, and the ongoing bluster about the state of manhood in the world feels, at best, two steps behind the times. Read full review
50
San Jose Mercury News/Contra Costa TimesChuck BarneyOct 10, 2011
Season 1 Review: Very little of it feels fresh or funny. Nor does Allen's character strike me as someone viewers would want to spend a great deal of time with. Read full review
42
Uncle BarkyEd BarkOct 10, 2011
Season 1 Review: Allen's mere presence may keep it in business for a while. But it already seems as though it belongs on TV Land, where Home Improvement repeats already reside. Read full review
40
Yahoo TVKen TuckerSep 28, 2018
Season 7 Review: It’s all extremely boring. ... The show remains very thin gruel when it comes to nourishing laughter, and it’s considerably worse when it gets preachy. Read full review
40
Washington PostHank StueverSep 27, 2018
Season 7 Review: Last Man Standing remains hopelessly mediocre. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterTim GoodmanOct 7, 2011
Season 1 Review: As bad as Last Man Standing is, it would be a trillion times worse without Allen's veteran presence and ability to sell comedy in that set-up/punch-line kind of way. Read full review
38
People WeeklyTom GliattoOct 7, 2011
Season 1 Review: Allen and Travis, who are both better than you r average comic actor, seem aware that they're trapped in a particular cookie-cutter sitcom hell, forced to laugh their way through stale gags about kids while other new TV comedies explore family life with clever, contemporary touches. [17 Oct 2011, p.39]
33
HitfixAlan SepinwallOct 11, 2011
Season 1 Review: The whole thing feels like a gross miscalculation--a failed attempt to update Allen's familiar persona for an angrier, more desperate time. Read full review
33
NewsdayVerne GayOct 7, 2011
Season 1 Review: Dreadful. Or to use a more manly phrase, aaarrgggh, awful. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesRobert LloydOct 11, 2011
Season 1 Review: The jokes and plots have been efficiently constructed, but most have no traction; they slide right off you, and the characters themselves seem disconnected from one another. Read full review
30
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen GrayOct 11, 2011
Season 1 Review: We all know Allen can work a punchline. He just shouldn't have to be working these so hard. Read full review
30
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob OwenOct 10, 2011
Season 1 Review: It feels both orchestrated and dated, like a show whose time came and went around the same TV era that "Home Improvement" aired in. Read full review
30
VarietyBrian LowryOct 10, 2011
Season 1 Review: Mostly, it's an excuse to watch Allen occupy an Archie Bunker-like role 20 years after he began raking in cash for ABC. Good luck catching lightning in a bottle twice. Read full review
25
Boston HeraldMark A. PerigardOct 11, 2011
Season 1 Review: It's strange that the same network that airs these two stellar comedies [Modern Family & The Middle] would chose to regress and put this dreck on the air. Read full review
25
Chicago Sun-TimesLori RacklOct 7, 2011
Season 1 Review: We're supposed to believe that there's a nice guy lurking underneath that misogynistic, bigoted shell. But just like everything that's for sale at Outdoor Man, I'm not buying it. Read full review
25
Boston GlobeMatthew GilbertSep 29, 2011
Season 1 Review: Allen tries too hard to be cranky and offensive and misogynistic and yet ultimately--aww--a good guy. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsDavid HinckleyOct 11, 2011
Season 1 Review: Everything in Mike's life seems contrived to set up ba-ba-boom punch lines. Read full review
20
TimeJames PoniewozikOct 11, 2011
Season 1 Review: It's a stale sitcom right out of the early '90s, and like Mike, it seems to believe it can just harangue the world into changing back with it. Read full review
20
TV Guide MagazineMatt RoushOct 11, 2011
Season 1 Review: It's pretty much impossible to care, since we've heard it all before, and it was funnier and fresher the first time around. Read full review
10
SlateTroy PattersonOct 11, 2011
Season 1 Review: Very probably the worst sitcom on network television, Last Man Standing makes Whitney Cummings look like Noël Coward. Read full review
10
Washington PostHank StueverOct 11, 2011
Season 1 Review: It's less of a newly conceived comedy and more of a prime-time haunting. Read full review
0
Miami HeraldGlenn GarvinOct 11, 2011
Season 1 Review: With tediously unfunny scripts and a listless cast that looks as if it can barely wait for the director to shout "Cut!" so it can head en masse to the unemployment office, Last Man Standing is some kind of voracious video parasite that sucks out all intellect, sense of purpose or will to live. Read full review
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