The Critic
Cast & Key People
▶
Our Review
Jay Sherman reviews movies on a local Boston television show watched by almost nobody, hates nearly everything, and does it brilliantly. Simpsons alumni Al Jean and Mike Reiss built the sharpest Hollywood satire of the decade around Jon Lovitz’s nasal sneer, and ABC aired it twice and then lost the nerve, reportedly over a scheduling hunch about Seinfeld.
The joke structure is pure specificity: Sherman’s 94 word reviews, his miserable marriage, and a cameo parade of celebrities playing bruised versions of themselves that reads now like a time capsule of every ego in the business. Canceled by network timidity, it came back years later on the early internet for a third season almost nobody paid to see and almost everybody who saw defended.
The 32 surviving episodes have a hit rate most animated comedies would envy, and Sherman’s rants describe critic culture better than most criticism does. Watch it in one weekend.
Our score: 8/10.
