FX premieres Married, a comedy from Andrew Gurland about the struggles of a long-time married couple. The show, which debuts Thursday at 10 p.m., stars Judy Greer and Nat Faxon as the title couple, with Brett Gelman, John Hodgman and Jenny Slate playing their friends. The following are reviews from TV critics around the web, compiled by B&C.
“Stick with Married, though, and it gets better–which is to say that Russ and Lina begin to turn into people. The series drops the mistress-hunting angle after the pilot and focuses on refining a raw but generous take on the strains of parenting: wondering if you’ve lost your identity, feeling sexually invisible, getting a vet bill and having to mentally calculate precisely how much you love the family pet, in dollar terms.”
— James Poniewozik, Time
“But the whole thing is every bit as joyless, airless and uncomfortable as the marriage it's depicting — a show filled with miserable, unlikeable characters that doesn't provide them with writing remotely sharp enough to compensate.”
— Alan Sepinwall, HitFix
“‘Married’ is a little easier on the heart and the head. It also involves two terrific actors — Judy Greer, who illuminates everything she touches including those wacky phone commercials, and Nat Faxon from the still missed "Ben and Kate" — in a story not quite as smart and bold as it thinks it is.”
— Mary McNamara, LA Times
“One would imagine the idea of the couple believing they have a dull life would lead to a series where they try to re-find themselves, but instead, the couple’s marriage is just presented as is, and with no signs of wanting to change. Never is there an acknowledgement of the couple not being happy, and without that, there’s nothing to make the series anything more than a scripted, single camera mokumentary.”
— Merrill Barr, Forbes
“It’s all brought together by the easy chemistry between Faxon and Greer, in which looks of exasperation common to any sitcom are undercut by looks of true affection.”
— Molly Eichel, AV Club
“Mostly, it’s the age-old fear of married guys that someone is having a lot more fun (and sex) than they are. Faxon sells all of that — as well as a nagging concern, in subsequent episodes, about money issues — but this kind of series still requires a deft touch, even with the expanded license FX offers to explore sexual situations more frankly than in the broadcast realm.”
— Brian Lowry, Variety
