Review Roundup: Critics Say Out Comic Jerrod Carmichael Pushes Reality TV's Boundaries with New HBO Series

Star Tribune

"'Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show' is something else entirely. Over the course of eight episodes, we watch the Emmy-winning comedian as he chastises his parents for not fully embracing his homosexuality, cheats on his boyfriends with a rotating door of Grindr dates and alienates friends," writes Neal Justin.

"... Like he did in his excellent NBC sitcom 'The Jerrod Carmichael Show' and various stand-up specials, the comic treats the screen like a confessional booth, as if the only time he can truly be honest with himself is when the cameras are rolling. It may not be the healthiest form of therapy, but it does make for an enlightening viewing experience."

Time Magazine

"As its utilitarian title suggests, 'Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show' continues his experiment in radical honesty. Framed – and deepened as much as it's leavened – by co-creator Carmichael's onstage monologues, the perceptive eight-part HBO series, which premieres March 29, is disarmingly frank about not only his personal life, but also about its own constructedness," writes critic Judy Berman. "We watch the comedian produce as the camera rolls, persuading family and friends to discuss hard topics on camera as crew members swarm. By making us privy to these contrivances, he establishes authenticity within a notoriously artificial genre...

"Yet Carmichael is hardest on himself, constantly questioning whether he can become a good friend, a faithful boyfriend, a person who doesn't need cameras in the room to hold himself accountable. Which is not to say that 'Reality Show' is a self-serious slog; the half-hour episodes are funny, if often darkly so, because their protagonist and the people around him are funny. At a moment when most comedians brand themselves as either iconoclastic truth tellers or righteous arbiters of virtue, it's refreshing to see Carmichael take such pains to be perceived precisely as he is."

Vulture

"Comedian Jerrod Carmichael's new show is obnoxiously compelling," writes critic Kathryn VanArendonk. "It's compelling because Carmichael cannot seem to help being electrically charismatic, and because the series moves through stories and ideas with an ease that belies the challenge of good pacing. It's obnoxious because the only thing more trying than a vanity project is a vanity project that cannot stop examining itself as a vanity project...

"There's an appeal in a total cynical deconstruction of all of this – sexuality, the private self, performance, the enormous obsession with voyeuristic lifestyle-reality programming. You don't have to really care about any of it if it's all just a performance. But in its most moving scenes, 'Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show' depicts how vitally important it is to care about things – so Carmichael's mother could care enough to give up her religious convictions, neighbors can care about his own personal growth, and Carmichael can care about anyone other than himself. And occasionally, those scenes – regardless of the 'truth' of them – are transcendentally powerful. But it only pulls this off when the show gets its head out of its own very charismatic ass."