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| Splitsider |
While I was very unimpressed with NBC's other end-of-summer sitcom Mr. Robinson, I still was interested in watching The Carmichael Show. While the original trailer made the show look good enough to try out, but not all that great, the advertisements that NBC has aired since then look better and I really thought that the show could be better than its timeslot predecessor. And this is what I thought of the first two episodes of The Carmichael Show.
S1E1 "Pilot"
The start of the first episode was pretty good. It set up the plot of the episode well, though it didn't have too many laughs. The most entertaining part of the first scene was Jerrod's trying to get off the topic of Maxine moving in with him. After that the show got a lot funnier when Jerrod's parents were introduced. Jerrod gets his parents to debate so that Maxine can't tell them that they moved in together, and it was hilarious. The personalities of the two parents were just hilarious.
But the episode was only halfway over, because this is a sitcom, which means that the problem can't be resolved easily. Jerrod of course realized how important it was to Maxine that they are honest with his parents, so they went back to their house to tell them the news, which gave the parents more opportunity to be hilarious.
It was a pretty good pilot, and while the parents provided most of the funny and the rest of the cast didn't, the show definitely has potential.
S1E2 "Protest"
The second episode started similarly, starting with Jerrod and Maxine, and then Jerrod's brother and his ex-wife entering. While the show attempted at some jokes at the beginning with Jerrod not liking his gift very much, it wasn't funny. Then, the brother's ex-wife introduced the episode's main plot, a unarmed black person was shot by a police officer and as a result people are protesting.
This episode wasn't very funny. The episode talked about a serious issue, and as a result it was taken seriously and the attempted jokes fell flat. I didn't really laugh until almost halfway through the episode when the ex-wife came in a with a stolen TV. It handled the serious issue fairly well, but it just didn't feel right for the show, at least at this point. Many sitcoms in the past have tackled serious issues, but usually it wasn't this early on.
There were a couple of good jokes when Jerrod and his dad were talking, but after that the episode wasn't as funny. It wasn't serious though either, it was just trying to be funny, but not doing it well.
Overall, I thought that the first episode was good, and the second was mediocre. The parents are very funny, but the other characters need to be funny too. Also, it seems like the show wants to tackle serious issues, so I hope they can do that well, they did it alright in "Protest".
What did you think of the series premiere of The Carmichael Show? Leave your thoughts in the comments!