'The Paul Reiser Show' Premiere Episodes

The Paul Reiser Show is an amiable but forgettable showcase for its namesake creator and star, who takes the tired formula of a celebrity playing a fictionalized version of himself and parlays it into a fairly standard sitcom.

I guess that Paul Reiser deserves some credit for acknowledging right away just how blatantly his new The Paul Reiser Show rips off Curb Your Enthusiasm: The very first episode features a guest appearance from Curb’s Larry David, playing himself, encouraging Reiser to create a Curb-like show. It’s a little too much self-awareness in a show that’s all about being self-aware, and it only serves to highlight how tired the formula of a self-deprecating celebrity playing himself has become since David created Curb in 2000.

The Paul Reiser Show isn’t as caustic and unapologetic as Curb, anyway; it’s basically a cuddly network sitcom cloaked in the trappings of something more sophisticated and satirical. Reiser plays himself here mostly because it’s simple shorthand; he could play a fictional former sitcom star and the show wouldn’t be any different, but why bother? The commentary on the life of a celebrity or the perils of showbiz is old hat, although some of it can be mildly amusing. The show is more interested in Reiser’s home life: his relationships with his wife and kids, and the time he spends with his four painstakingly diverse friends. All of the actors who play Reiser’s friends are amusing in their own ways, but somehow they add up to less than the sum of their parts. For every inspired moment like the endearingly low-budget commercial created by Habib (Omid Djalili) for his warehouse business, there are far more scenes of the four guys just standing around pointlessly.

Unlike Larry David, Reiser is likable both as a performer and as a character, so even when his show just recycles stock sitcom plots (the Reisers have a stray cat somewhere in their backyard), it’s pleasant enough to watch. But a show like this aspires to something more clever than that (and it should), and that’s where it falls seriously short.

Disclosure: A review screener was provided by the network. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.