The TV Set: Critic Reviews

Very smart, very funny movie about the making of a network sitcom is a cut-glass gem of a showbiz conceit.

The jokes are things people shooting a pilot might actually say; the telling episodes of vanity or stupidity are entirely believable.

The TV Set skewers the television industry in a manner that occasionally feels familiar and at other times is humorously incisive.

The TV Set, written and directed by Jake Kasdan, often possesses the gimlet-eyed wit of The Player or the mock docs of Christopher Guest.

A tart, smart, closely observed satire of the television industry.

Writer-director Jake Kasdan has been through his share of meetings with production executives eager to share their ideas on improving his ideas, and in The TV Set, we see that dynamic play out from beginning to corrosive end.

The TV Set isn't in the same league with Network or The Player, but it's very good, and its cast is accomplished.

It's deftly calibrated and acted with relish: [writer-director] Kasdan is really good!

The satire is unrelenting but not too broad; it stays close to common observation.

Kasdan wisely doesn't make this about the big, bad bosses vs. the creative geniuses who won't compromise. It's a well-balanced look at a process, which, from the outside seems arbitrary and convoluted, but from the inside makes sense.

Various news stories have noted the movie's accuracy, which I don't doubt, but the blanket antipathy makes for a wearying and predictable story.

Bland and compromised, it feels as if it's been fine-tuned and focus-grouped within an inch of its life.

This satire settles for simply restating the obvious.

A somewhat cold and calculated film that apparently unconsciously exemplifies that which it intends to criticize.

The TV Set, about the Hollywood cultural miasma called "pilot season," is the kind of sharp, satirical picture of show business as no business that so badly missed the mark in For Your Consideration.

An insider pic likely to produce a few knowing guffaws from the industry but only occasional chuckles from John Q. Public.

Everyone already knew showbiz is ridiculous, but the funniest example Kasdan can come up with is a manager who has never seen Taxi Driver.

The appalling sausage factory that produces what we see on network TV is nicely skewered in The TV Set, an engaging if not exactly edgy comedy that exists to restate the obvious.

Kasdan should have the expertise to write a backstage expose of the TV industry. This one simply isn't funny.

The TV Set is a little wonder of a movie, as smart and sad and true as any comedy I've seen this year.

Kasdan, a TV industry veteran, knows his territory well and has translated his experiences with an obvious verisimilitude. But for all the dead-on accuracy of his characterizations and situations, there is little that is terribly surprising here.

Call me crazy, but there's a lot more going on in The TV Set than first meets the eye. You'll have major fun at this movie. But what makes it something special is the way [director] Kasdan laces the laughs with a sting.

... wickedly funny ...

...an intriguing, occasionally horrifying look at the behind-the-scenes shenanigans within the network-television world.