The “Leanne” of Netflix is a predictable southern comfort | TV / Streaming

The new Netflix Laughter “Leanne” is … very good. The sitcom Chuck Lorre features Leanne Morgan of Netflix special, “Leanne Morgan: I am all women.” Fans of this hour will find several of the same themes and even some of the same jokes of the first season of 16 episodes, whose first eight made available for criticism.

If you liked the stand -up, it is probably because of Morgan’s voice – his unique and totally relatable sockets of aging, marriage and parenting. This voice is fully effect in “Leanne”, which is why the series works as often as it does.

Being new in Morgan’s work, and not downright in his demographic group, it took me until the end of the second episode to smile. Forty minutes is a long configuration, but the show improves from there, even welcoming in an audience that could find Leanne’s Suburban Tennessee. Part of the initial problem is that Leanne and her fictitious sister Carol (Kristen Johnston) open the series in full HA mode, making ridiculous faces that are not realistic, endearing or funny. However, as we know them, their grimaces become less entertaining, part of the show. This also helps Leanne escapes the only note from her household character Jilted as she begins to explore and even enjoy her new freedom.

Once you have taken the wavelength from his show, Morgan has a lot of charm and presence. And once we went through the configuration in the first episodes, the show begins with jokes and fast songs, finding humor in things like people in the late 1950s.

None of this is peak, but it’s okay. It has a comforting sensation (even if sometimes foreign), and a solid support base reinforces the sometimes conscious performance of Morgan. Celia Weston and Blake Clark play her aging parents and invite us to join the pleasure of their Kooky and Crochety characters. Bringing his mixture of resignation and mischief, Ryan Stiles plays Leanne’s capricious husband and has the right frequency. Jayma Mays embodies the neighbor of Leanne Busybody (colleague member of the church and participating in the exercise class), simultaneously offering a performance in a way rooted and exaggerated. This tip realizes what Morgan and Johnston are trying from the start, but do not always bring together – a character who knows in which spectacle she is and invites people to laugh with and to her.

I also appreciate that Annie Gonzalez is there – she plays the daughter -in -law of Leanne, Nora. And while Gonzalez eats the material that gave him (and this show is no exception), his character exposes some of the problems with “Leanne”. You see, Nora is the NAG, bringing the right time of everyone by emphasizing football problems (concussion!), For example, and generally to be a party-pooper. It does not matter that she is right – the series is against her, depicting her husband as trampled and trapped in a movement which is both retrograde and funny.

Likewise, Morgan makes many jokes on his body, both in sitcom and in his stand-up. But as she radiates confidence on stage, undergoing her supposed insecure, the same thing is not true in situational comedy. There, the fictitious leanne is brought low by his concerns about his body, and therefore laughing at them does not feel conspirator but somewhere between heavy and cruel. In addition, these jokes on aging (and the loss of beauty that accompanies it) feel tired. They were finished, and with the We do don’t notm club make titles for its capture of a new cultural zeitgeist, this sitcom had the opportunity to find new jokes on the menopause. He does not, in accordance with his favor, a sense of traditional humor of television by dissemination on risk taking.

It is not “Abbott Elementary” or “The Office” or “Rosanne”. I cannot imagine it in reward conversations. But that doesn’t try. Its objective is Comfort TV, and “Leanne” succeeds mainly. Blessed his heart.