Lab Rats viewed poorly by critics
The first episode of Chris Addison's new studio-based sitcom Lab Rats has not been looked upon well by critics.
Out of five stars, Tim Teeman in The Times gave the show absolutely no stars at all. He wrote, "Lab Rats is a truly appalling new sitcom. The characters – geeks who work in a lab – are not even colourful enough to be stereotypes. Chris Addison, star and co-writer, is a man transformed (all for the bad) from his winning performance in The Thick of It as the wry chief geek. Bad puns, redundant characters, lame jokes (about twenty involving 'gay hair') – and yes it really did end with a huge, rampaging snail. Not even the best surgeon in the land could save this."
Lucy Mangan in The Guardian was equally scathing in her comments, saying, "Buried amid the kind of stuff that would barely have passed muster in the 70s (does Dr Beenyman's pink coat make him look gay? No - his hair does! How has daft Cara managed to get through life without a piano falling on her head? 'I haven’t!') are signs of both comedy and intelligence, but when all the jokes are spatchcocked into a wafer-thin plot that veers uncertainly between reality and surreality, this particular experiment can only be deemed a failure."
Robert Hanks in The Independent was critical, but at the same time did not write off the series completely. He said that the cast was good and that, "The plot of last night's episode was pleasantly absurdist, the jokes were commendably odd and wide-ranging." However, he also wrote that, "Somehow, though, it didn't quite gel, largely because of the studio audience, whose laughter, as so often, slowed things down and underlined jokes that needed to be thrown away. It may be, too, that the cast is a little too large, so that the stories lack a focus (compare the similar but funnier The IT Crowd, with only three regulars and a couple of frequent walk-ons). Worth giving it a week or two, though."
Other critics were more positive however. Robert Collins in the Daily Telegraph wrote that, "The result is a catalytic reaction of Red Dwarf and The IT Crowd, in a solution of Are You Being Served? And it's not a bad formula."
Meanwhile, Jane Simon in the Daily Mirror: "What better place to try to reinvent the studio-based sitcom than in a science laboratory? If you're stuck for the next surreal joke or lethal punchline you can always just set about whipping one up in a Petri dish... Childishly inventive and frequently just silly, it's not a bad first impression."
The show started with 1.7 million viewers (8% audience share) last night, but by the end of the episode, the number of viewers had fallen by 200,000. However, 1.7 million is still a respectable figure for BBC Two on a Thursday night (this is roughly the same as both The Graham Norton Show and That Mitchell and Webb Look have averaged previously). The big test will be next week, when it will be known how many viewers opt to tune in for a second week.
More reviews of the show can be read in our Lab Rats guide and you can express your views via the BSG's Forum.