The Kominsky Method

Arkin is a cinch Emmy nominee for his contributions and Douglas may well find himself along for that ride. The scenes with the acting class students for the most part don’t work as well. ... Viewers of a certain age may well respond with knowing head nods to the age-old predicaments that Sandy and Norman find themselves in. But the series might also have some traction with advertiser-prized 18-to-49-year-olds.

This eight-episode comedy takes some of what works best about Mom into a single-camera format, finding a way to laugh both at and with its main characters while still letting them retain most of their dignity. ... Arkin's performance is his best since Little Miss Sunshine and perhaps some time before that, one perfectly timed droll deadpan after another. And with wry incredulity, Douglas plays entirely different, complementary notes.

For the most part, however, Lorre’s sense of humor stings and zings, in ways that both honor and broaden his sitcom achievements. If there’s a joke to be had, Lorre will make it; in this case, that sort of predictability is reassuring and enjoyable. The show is snarky but personable, with most of the pleasure coming from Arkin and Douglas’s expert depiction of that rarest of things--a frank and honest friendship between two men.

There is no shortage of chuckles along the way, but the hit-and-miss nature of the writing keeps the series from staying on track as it heads for moments both humorous and poignant.

The Kominsky Method isn’t a disaster; it has a certain warm-bath appeal, if you don’t mind a thick foam of prostate jokes. But it is adrift in a bland netherworld between Lorre’s precision-tooled, laugh-a-minute network comedies and the quieter aesthetic of the alt-sitcom, lacking the strengths of either.