Review Roundup: Critics Say Out Comic Jerrod Carmichael Pushes Reality TV's Boundaries with New HBO Series

Will Jerrod Carmichael transform reality television? You may think so with the rapturous praise from critics for "The Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show," that premieres on March 29 on HBO. The eight-episode series is described on the Warner Bros. Discovery website as "centering on Carmichael's personal life, following him through encounters with friends, family, and strangers, all in his quest for love, sex, and connection."

Carmichael, who is openly gay, screened three episodes at SXSW three episodes screened at SXSW earlier this month, reported IndieWire. "I really liked the idea of someone who's telling the truth despite himself, and I tried to do that with stand-up, and I wanted to do that with my life," he said after the premiere.

Carmichael getting personal made headlines with his 2022 HBO special "Rothaniel," when he came out as gay. NPR critic Aisha Harris wrote when the show premiered that "Carmichael comes out publicly as gay for the first time and he talks about secrets that have haunted his family for multiple generations. It's a profoundly immersive experience that pushes the boundaries of stand-up and confessional art." Time Magazine wrote the special was "a creative turning point as well as a personal one. In place of polished jokes, he offered earnest reflection, expressed genuine confusion, and had spontaneous conversations with the audience."

He pushes the confessional side of his life even further with this series, in which the controlled persona from "Rothaniel" is seen in different lights. It very well may like viewers to feel the discomfort felt watching Nathan Felder in "The Curse," a recent Showtime scripted series about a couple (co-star Emma Stone) who are pushing to star in their own home development reality show.

"The show's intense, constant gaze on Carmichael is not always flattering: In various interactions with his friends and family, he demonstrates himself to be a pretty disappointing friend and a fair-weather and often selfish partner in romantic relationships," reports Vulture. (Note: story behind a firewall.) For instance, he can't help but be seen in a bad light when he appears to help, then betray, a childhood friend attempting a show business career in New York, or is seen cheating on his boyfriend on Grindr.

The show became so personal that many involved pushed back as to why Carmichael was even pursuing it. "Nobody you see on screen wanted to do it," Carmichael told the SWSW audience. "I think that's why it made good television, because nobody wanted to do it, nobody wanted that type of attention – even the public figures didn't want any part. I'm still dealing with the fallout. I still deal with a text a day from someone who has second thoughts about the whole thing."

Here is a sampling of the reviews:

The Daily Beast

Daily Beast critic Allegra Frank writes: "The half-hour series – which errs more toward documentary than pure reality show – captures the comedian's effort to poke veins adjacent to the one he burst open in 'Rothaniel.' But Carmichael's intimacy here is more playful, building a narrative over the course of its eight episodes that requires both performativity and painful honesty. While 'Reality Show' is not quite as revelatory as his career-defining special, it's a fascinating, affecting, and valuable experiment in how honest one can really be when you're writing, directing, and filming your own life...

"To call 'Carmichael Reality Show' a powerful watch makes it sound a lot more haughty and less fun than it actually is; there's a lot of wit, irony, and jokes to be found here. (And the humor isn't always intentional; Carmichael's successfully selling everyone in his life on seeing a therapist is a darkly funny recurring bit, even if it's in earnest.) But just like with 'Rothaniel,' Carmichael's latest project nails that tricky, incredibly watchable balance of revealing yourself without giving too much away. There's nothing else on TV like it."

The Hollywood Reporter

"HBO's 'Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show,' created by Carmichael, Eli Despres and director Ari Katcher, isn't precisely a sequel to 'Rothaniel,' but it's an extension of its genre-blurring tone and therapeutic approach," writes THR critic Daniel Fienberg. "With eight half-hour episodes, 'Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show' is a more expansive and confrontational thing, in which that inherent Carmichael likability is pushed into a much less comfortable place. It may not provoke quite as much self-examination from the viewer as it's intended to provoke from Carmichael, but the show, its formal inventiveness, its choices and its agendas are hard to shake...

"I imagine that the most common question for Carmichael in the editing room was, 'Are you SURE you want to leave this in?' But in subjecting himself to a warts-and-all treatment that's almost all warts, Carmichael is attempting something that's possibly more fascinating than 'Rothaniel ' – a roller coaster of identification and rejection that's sure to alienate some viewers, leaving the rest to contemplate a frequently funny, just as frequently uneasy intersection of truth and artifice...

"It's hard to call 'Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show' a 'fun' or 'conventionally enjoyable' show to watch, but I laughed and covered my eyes in mortification in equal measure – and since I finished my screeners, I haven't stopped thinking about it."