In 1994, Roger Ebert reviewed a TV series for the first and only time: “Impossible not to like”
Having reviewed thousands upon thousands of features during a decades-long career, it goes without saying that Roger Ebert was a movie guy. However, he did turn his attentions to TV, but only once.
It was a turn-up for the books, with the legendary critic breaking the habit of a lifetime and offering his thoughts on something made for the small screen, even if his reasons for doing so were as obvious as they were transparent. Still, it was one for the history books, albeit a little on the self-aggrandising side.
You’d think it must have been something revolutionary, trailblazing, pioneering, or unmissable that convinced Ebert, along with Gene Siskel, to upend convention and analyse an episodic production. It wasn’t, really, it was an animated series called The Critic, about a movie critic.
Starring John Lovitz as the voice of the protagonist, Jay Sherman, the show premiered in January 1994, and with the character hosting a TV series of his own, where his elitist opinions often override any sense of impartiality, it’s easy to see why the adult-skewing sitcom appealed to Ebert, and not only because it was packed full of film references, spoofs, and parodies.
“People have been asking me if I’ve seen The Critic, ABC’s new animated series,” he wrote. “Maybe they think I can identify with the hero, a critic named Jay Sherman who reviews movies on television and has certain points of similarity with Gene Siskel and me: He’s bald, and he has a Pulitzer.” To be fair, they weren’t wrong because he had seen it, and he did identify with the hero.
In fact, Ebert said, “It’s impossible not to like this guy,” especially when Sherman summed up his own popularity by flatly implying, “Most of my fans are drunken frat boys who make fun of me,” which is something the former identified with, having ruffled more than a few feathers with his own reviews.
It wasn’t an entirely glowing appraisal, though, with Ebert critiquing The Critic for failing to flesh out its supporting cast beyond the main character, and he even suggested that he and Siskel were on hand to offer advice on how to write better scripts for a production that took place in a world that few were more familiar with than them. For the most part, he approved, which became clear in the second and final season.
In the 1995 episode, ‘Siskel & Ebert & Jay & Alice’, the duo played themselves in a story where they broke off their long-standing partnership, placing Sherman in the middle when they each try to recruit him as the other’s replacement, only for them to realise by the time the credits rolled that they were better off together.
The Critic was eventually axed after its second run of episodes had finished airing, but it did at least manage to secure a unique place in history as the first and only TV series that Ebert reviewed.
