Accidentally on Purpose

New York PostLinda Stasi

Suspend all disbelief, pretend the really, really offensive laugh track doesn't exist, disregard the giant slabs of ham offered up by Jensen and Parham, and enjoy the chemistry between Elfman and Foster.

New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley

Sitcoms have been putting odd groups of people together in small apartments since before television existed. And so what? If we like the people, it doesn't matter, and Billie is someone we could get to like quite a bit.

USA TodayRobert Bianco

Elfman has a loopy charm and hyperdrive nuttiness that calls to mind the great screwball comedians, but she needs a strong force playing against her to soak up some of her energy. Foster may grow into that role, but right now, she's blasting him off the screen.

Los Angeles TimesRobert Lloyd

Everything in the pilot, written by executive producer Claudia Lonow, is a hair or three too strenuous; Billie has been knocked down to a few easy-to-grasp impulses, and almost all the other roles are filled by stereotypes--Jensen's most wastefully--in stereotypical relationships. Nevertheless, the premise is full of interesting possibilities about love and age and unconventional parenting.

Hollywood ReporterRandee Dawn

This is an utterly predictable comedy (what, you don't think Zack and Billie will fall in love in Season 2, right after he starts dating another chick and Billie has an epiphany?) that's got a few fun lines.

Washington PostTom Shales

Accidentally on Purpose doesn't have the smarts to be the salvation of a genre, but neither does it look like the torpedo to sink the ship. Not great, but nothing heinous.

NewsdayVerne Gay

Accidentally feels like a show that's nearly been focus-grouped into oblivion--with lines, beats and a cultural resonance that's so familiar you can almost see the baseball bat of predictability descending upon your head. So be it. Elfman's fine, as usual. This could be worse.

Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert

The stereotypes in play on Accidentally on Purpose are flat, if harmless, from the get-go.

VarietyBrian Lowry

The pilot is breezy enough, and there are solid supporting players, including Ashley Jensen and Grant Show. Those ingredients, however, are thus far more promising than what first comes out of the oven

Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen

It's not as funny as either of those hits ["The Big Bang Theory" and "Two and a Half Men"]--and certainly not as good a show as the superior "Bang"--but it is more enjoyable than "Rules of Engagement," which returns at mid-season (unfortunately).

San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman

CBS can turn a lot of tired fluff into sitcom hits, so who knows about Accidentally on Purpose? There are laughs here and there, but mostly it's all so very familiar and not remotely as funny as "Modern Family" or "Cougar Town."

The New York TimesMike Hale

Accidentally on Purpose, with its matching sets of friends for Billie and Zack, its bland jokes, its lack of any sort of topicality, its Jenna Elfman, feels as if it could have been on any time in the last two decades.

TV GuideMatt Roush

A newspaper writer whose one-night-stand with a baby-faced young-un leads to predictable complications when she gets, you guessed it, knocked up.

Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray

Zack (Jon Foster) also very sweet, which leaves Elfman as the sour (sort of) grown-up, a thankless job made only more thankless by the writing, which takes a bad situation and only makes it worse.

Chicago Sun-TimesPaige Wiser

The show has similarities with the movie "Knocked Up," but is missing its most important ingredient: humor.

Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin

Virtually everything in Accidentally on Purpose is some kind of cheap sexual crack or double entendre. The essential sweetness Elfman showed in Dharma & Greg and the later, unfortunately little-watched Courting Alex curdles into mean self-parody as she scorns her new boy-toy as an intellectual and economic inferior even as she grovels before his bedroom skills.

Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall

Jenna Elfman (who plays a newspaper movie critic who gets pregnant after a one-night stand with the young guy on the left, played by Jon Foster) seemed like a loose, natural comedienne, but she's trying way too hard to sell the jokes here-possibly because she knows no one's going to buy them without a whole lot of help.

Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm

Accidentally's supposedly based on somebody's memoir, but it's as smarmy and contrived as the worst of them.