Sadly Over-hyped

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

This show just isn't funny. Some of the topics have been interesting but the jokes just fall. I swear if I hear about the girlfriend being biracial one more time. Who cares????!!!! It's just stupid the thing where the brother lives with the boyfriend and ex. Is he just a plain stupid black man. I must be missing something because I don't know what kind of job the main "actor" has. Actor is in quotes because I WISH HE WOULD TAKE ACTING LESSONS. HE IS AWFUL. I don't even remember his name..... oh the Carmichael or whatever guy. I do like the mom but she's too loud. and the Dad is just dumb but funny. The Dad is saving the show.

It was refreshing to watch a scripted sitcom, which parallels my experience as a southern-born first-generation African American college graduate. The humor, the values, and the political commentary juxtaposed against their faith takes me back home with every episode! I have absolutely loved both Loretta Devine and David Allen Grier for decades. Few actors can match the comedic expression of David's facial lines and raised eyebrow. The multi-talented Loretta Devine with her soulful voice is the perfect cast for the southern mother. It has been difficult over the past decade or so to find a sitcom that both me and my extended family can relate to in this new age of "politically correct" and "millennial- centered" sitcoms ("Modern Family", "New Girl", "Big Bang Theory"). While I enjoy both New Girl and Big Bang Theory, I appreciate the NBC network for airing a show which reaches the often forgotten middle-age to older American audience. This show clearly reminds me that there is a great need for multiple voices and experiences to be expressed on network TV. I look forward to seeing the career path that the talented writer/actor Jerrod Carmichael will take.

Watching this show with a LIVE audience, and people truly laughing at it, is amazing in todays TV. The show itself is hilarious, but definitely unpredictable. You can't predict how the characters will react in a given situation, and they have real life views that reflect todays world. You have to value a show that isn't afraid to be funny while talking about not-so-funny world issues. No spoilers, but the pilot was the funniest show I had seen in years. The season episodes are just as funny.I know I'm jumping around, but I'll just end this review with this. The TIMING of these actors is amazing. Comedy is about timing, and they don't miss a beat.Gave it 9/10, because its the best comedy I've seen on TV in recent memory.

For me, watching The Carmichael Show was like watching a stand-up comic do a routine about how they grow up that has the audience in stitches but doesn't get as many laughs out of you because that's just not how you grew up. I feel the humor is reliant on a middle-class black cultural experience that I haven't had, so a lot of jokes go right over my head. I'm not saying that as a criticism, I'm just saying I can tell I'm missing a lot of jokes, so take my thoughts on the show with a grain of salt.Overall, the first episode is a cute, fairly standard family comedy in which a fairly sane young couple deals with his less down-to-earth family. There were some good moments, although I felt the jokes weren't as organic as they might be; it felt the show knew what joke it wanted to tell but didn't always have a natural path to it. Which of course is pretty common in sitcoms.The acting seemed rather weak. Certainly there have been worse actors on sitcoms (Jerry Seinfeld springs to mind) but in this case I thought pretty much *all* the acting was weak. It felt like everyone was a comedian but no one was an actor (except perhaps the brother, who seemed relatively solid).The pilot seems a bit unsure of itself, but I could see this show developing into something pretty good, within the limits of this sort of family sitcom, which is not my favorite form of comedy.I wouldn't try and dissuade anyone from checking this out, but for me, it doesn't quite work.