Not even 10 minutes into NBC’s preview of its upcoming workplace sitcom, American Auto, I had hopped into TTAC’s Slack channel to offer a negative appraisal.

That’s unusual for me – I tend to give a new show more than 10 minutes before judging – but I was struggling to find redeeming qualities. It’s one thing for a show about a fictional car company to get things about the auto industry wrong – much more on that in a bit – but this is a comedy, and I wasn’t laughing.

I dutifully forced myself to keep watching the rest of the two-episode, one-hour preview. The show got better – but it still needs work.

The show debuts for real on January 4th and the first two episodes are already streaming on NBC’s Peacock streaming service. If you missed the preview – there was NFL football with playoff implications occurring last night, after all – well, I am here to recap/review it for you before you stream it.

American Auto follows the fictional Detroit-based Payne Motors, which is apparently struggling despite over a century in business, and has just hired its first female CEO – a woman who comes from the pharmaceutical industry and knows so little about cars she doesn’t even know how to pronounce “chassis.” Her name is Katherine Hastings and she’s played by Ana Gasteyer, who is best known for her time on Saturday Night Live.

There’s an obvious nod to Ford here since Payne Motors carries a family name. The font for the company’s logo even looks like Ford’s. And there are numerous references to how the company founder was a bigoted asshole – a la Henry Ford.

It might also be tempting to compare Hastings to GM boss Mary Barra, but that doesn’t really work – Barra was an industry lifer even before being plucked to sit in the big chair. A better comparison might be Alan Mulally, an industry outsider who came from Boeing – but Mulally wasn’t clueless about cars when he took the Ford gig, and he did some good work in Dearborn.

Surrounding Gasteyer’s Hastings are PR boss Sadie (Harriet Dyer), design chief Cyrus (Michael Benjamin Washington), lead legal counsel Elliot (Humphrey Ker), assistant to the CEO Dori (X Mayo), and a scion of the Payne family named Wesley (Jon Barinholtz). Assembly-line worker Jack (Tye White) gets promoted to an unspecified job in the C-suite as the first episode ends (a second-episode subplot focuses on Jack trying to figure what his new responsibilities are).

Jack’s promotion is one of many things the show gets wrong about the industry. In what world does an assembly-line worker – even one who’s supposedly the leader of the plant, like Jack – get invited to brainstorm ideas with the CEO and then get promoted to the C-suite because he gives a speech about cars being cool and the new boss wants blue-collar cred among all the business majors? That all happens because Jack, the assembly-line worker, was miraculously at the test track at the right time to get run over by a self-driving car.

It gets worse. We first see Jack when he wanders into the office to speak to Sadie, who he slept with during a drunken Christmas party hookup. Since when do line workers attend the same Xmas party as the white-collared, salaried folk? Maybe if Jack was a plant manager, wearing a tie to work instead of a mechanic’s shirt. Maybe. Then again, it’s also odd that the assembly plant seems to be on the same property as both the office and the test track.

I expected the show to get some things about the industry wrong – Hollywood always gets at least some things wrong about a given industry when it comes to workplace sitcoms. I also figured the show might have to warp reality for the sake of story, or especially comedy. I was willing to give it a pass, to an extent.

But it’s still annoying to see a landscape that is much more California than Detroit when peering out the office windows – the only concession to Payne Motors being in Detroit appears to be the slapping of Michigan plates on cars. It’s also a stretch to see workers literally pulling parts off random cars in a parking lot to create a last-second replacement prototype.

On the other hand, some things will hit home to industry observers. A print newspaper that focuses on cars looks a lot like Automotive News, and the real Autoblog gets a shoutout. There’s a new-car launch with terrible dancing – think Volt dance – and the show humorously points out why autonomous driving isn’t ready for primetime.

Jack’s speech about cars being cool is a bit corny, but it will resonate with those of us who actually like to, you know, drive the damn things.

I’d also like to mention that the first episode wraps with a real-life version of “the Homer” from The Simpsons.

The second episode even subtly touches on the dance between PR and the press (both automotive and general) in ways that felt familiar to me, even if it’s a bit generalized and comedy comes before nuance (and perhaps, reality).

There’s also a subtle dig at the overlap between watch culture and car culture in the first episode that got me to chuckle a little.

Car stuff aside, that’s the problem with the show – I rarely did more than chortle. It’s not that the show isn’t funny – some jokes landed pretty well – but it’s not as funny as similar shows. At least, not so far, not to me.

There’s a The Office or Superstore vibe here (creator Justin Spitzer was behind the latter and worked on the former, and Barinholtz was also in Superstore). I’ve never seen Superstore, but I think The Office was better crafted than American Auto. Funnier, at least.

That’s not to say this show is completely devoid of laughs. There’s a funny bit about a self-driving car being “racist” because it can’t see dark colors and the company had no Black dummies. I also laughed a little at a mock-up car that had “anti-kidnapping” devices – it was a good visual gag. A running gag involving Hastings assuming Jack and Sadie are having sex every time she walks into a room where they’re talking gets a few grins. And Hastings has a habit of stepping into rhetorical trouble due to lack of foresight/preparedness in a way that reminds a bit of Michael Scott.

Only a bit, though – Hastings has more self-awareness and is less obnoxious. Still, the second episode revolves around her stumbling through an interview in which she’s unprepared for obvious follow-ups. Of course, her interviewers also act in bad faith and twist her words, in a critique of the worst type of journalists who sometimes play “gotcha” during live hits.

Had she been as media-savvy as a real auto-world CEO, she’d have handled the interview with grace. And Payne Motors would’ve vetted the hell out of the bigoted customer to who they give a platform. Then again, that wouldn’t be funny.

At least the acting is competent across the board: Gasteyer is solid with her deadpan line delivery, Washington does a nice job with his character’s creepy weirdness, and Barinholtz stands out as the clueless, obnoxious Wesley. Wesley is so ignorant that he doesn’t even realize that Hastings wasn’t hired just for diversity, but because he’s so inept he’d be worse at running a car company than a woman who doesn’t even drive – one who also doesn’t understand why enthusiasts “fetishize” cars. Wesley is basically every skeevy, insufferable co-worker ever shown in a workplace comedy rolled into one, and Barinholtz sells it.

X Mayo is fine as Dori, who’s both street smart and naïve at the same time. But the show doesn’t know what to do with Sadie, Jack, and Elliot. Elliot says things that are funny only because of his British accent, and sometimes provides a voice of reason or the legal perspective, but otherwise, we know nothing about him. We don’t know if he’s a competent lawyer. We don’t know if he’s ethical or sleazy. There’s comic potential here, but through the first two episodes, he seems to exist mostly for exposition.

Then we get Sadie and Jack. Both are supposed to be “straights” to the goofballs around them, but they mostly come off as bland, and both seem to get fewer punchlines than the others. Sadie (an attractive blonde heading PR. Shocking) is stressed because she wants to do the right thing and impress her boss. She’s also supposed to be a car person, but she hides it to impress Hastings, and we only know about her “Ferrari bedsheets” and “fuel-pump shower head” because Jack blurts it out at a very inappropriate time. None of this is Dyer’s fault – it’s the writing.

Same with Tye White’s Jack. White handles the character well, but like Sadie, he’s good-looking and smart and kinda bland, though he’s a bit more unflappable than she is. Their potential love story is undeveloped, save for one longing look and some awkward positioning when she’s helping him wrench on a car. There’s so much possibility there – they could end up together, they could be rivals, whatever – but so far, it’s untapped. Again, either the writing is subpar or things are being held for future episodes.

The thing with workplace comedies is that they’re not usually about the industry. From Cheers to Night Court to Wings to The Office, workplace sitcoms usually only refer to their highlighted industry when it’s a convenient plot device or makes for an easy gag. American Auto, like all those others, is aimed at a mass audience, one that won’t know/care about automotive references. And while the well of automotive-industry comedy is deep, it’s not unlimited.

If the show is to be a hit, it needs to be more consistently funny, and it needs to develop its characters. In car parlance, it’s like a first-year model that rides on a good platform but needs tweaks to powertrain and design. And in time for the next model year.

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Thanks for the warning; my stomach isn’t strong enough for this one.

Right-wingers aren’t going to like it. Stick to Fox Noise.

@ Ol Shel You’re probably right. They tend to like things with good quality writing and acting and not things full of underlying social justice garbage.

Didn’t know the show existed prior to reading this review.

Having read the review, I’ll be more than happy to forget the show ever existed.

Then again, I haven’t watched a sitcom since the 1960’s. I hate the genre.

I’d rather sound myself with a meat thermometer.

Well, I just made the mistake of looking up “sounding” on my work computer. Hopefully I have a job tomorrow.

For boardroom intrigue, you can’t beat “Succession.”

Bet Shiv rues the day she decided to c*ck Tom.

I haven’t watched Succession. Honestly, I watch very little scripted TV these days — pretty much only the Walking Dead, which I am hanging in there just to complete. I’m basically all sports/news/documentaries/live event shows/old movies these days.

NBC / Comcast Operation Mockingbird to ease you into the friendly Mary Berra guided demise of our nation’s once largest corporation. Then, another bailout with a new Subsidised EV Fleet introduction. You’ll feel all warm and fuzzy normalized by this TV show. UAW will be the workforce laundering .gov money back into the pockets of Dem. Party Machine. It’s all good.

…as opposed to having all of the so-called “trickle-down” money being laundered through the various “enterprise” branded PAC’s and directly to the good ol’ boys. Why the GOP is afraid of unions baffles me. The Koch brothers alone have more resources. And no corresponding social conscience.

I’m anti-football since the Raiders moved to Vegas and generally they suck, so I saw this on the guide and turned it on, wasn’t paying much attention to it and fell asleep. Woke up and just went to bed early knowing it was going to snow and wanted to shovel the drive asap.

I haven’t watched this show but from the previews it looks dumb and it will not last beyond season 1. Very few of today’s sitcoms are funny especially since political correctness has limited what can be said and done on most shows and humor with whit is definitely out.

Hopefully, the KKK network will produce some shows that please you. Welcome to 2021: a time about 60 years too evolved for you.

Hope you don’t watch British comedy. All bets are off in British comedy and they go for the jugular. Race, sex, the Prime Minister, even the Queen are topics open to jest.

The whole idea of comedy is to poke fun at yourself. Something so lacking in American comedy. Even SNL has gotten so dull due to absolute Political Correctness. But this too will pass…eventually!

Ah, I see Ol Shel, you are one of those people who feel the need to accuse people of racism when none exists. Says a lot about your character. Keep up that leftist stereotype, I’m sure it’ll work out for ya.

I watched the two episodes. I think you put more thought into your review than the writers put into the scripts. I will not watch it again. For the record though, I did chuckle twice. I do not get most comedies; the only one that gets me laughing regularly is “Archer.”

This sounds like a one and done, or perhaps one of those that gets canned after half a season and replaced by something more promising.

Think I’ll skip it.

You are assuming that just because I like humor with whit that I am a member of the KKK which is a false assumption. I don’t believe in putting anyone down or being offensive but if something that is suppose to be a comedy and is not funny then I don’t want to waste my time. There is way too much political correctness to where saying Good Morning can be offensive to some. After watching the commercials for this show it was enough to not peak my interest to watch the show.

I saw one preview for this. Not funny or interesting from what I saw. Further, Gasteyer is not leading woman material. I can think of a few actresses that would be better.

Oh boy! A car-related comedy! I hope it’s as good as The Crew.

I watched Framing John DeLorean on Netflix the other day and I thought it was really well done. It certainly made me rethink my opinion of him. Now I’m curious to know more about his side of things.

so, clearly not a single person here has watched or even heard of Superstore–Justin Spitzer’s previous show.

(Or The Office before that?)

I saw a little of Superstore. I didn’t laugh once. The Office is unwatchable.

You haven’t watched Superstore? You need to bingewatch Superstore. It’s even better than the Office.

The blonde in this show is exactly Amy. No question about it.

I haven’t missed anything of importance nor interest since I trashed the antenna and cut the cable TV cord 20 years ago. I really don’t miss the advertising which sucks up 15 to 17 minutes of each hour nor the inane uninteresting content of the programming efforts. And then Bean Wearing a Sombrero smacks me with annoying advertising for their almost a truck, over and over…

“I really don’t miss the advertising…”

I haven’t watched an ad on TV in 20 years. Technology to the rescue.

So, I have ad-free Hulu and ad-free Discovery+. I have an antenna, so I get to watch the prime time content that doesn’t appear on Hulu; but, because my DVR watches it for me, I get to watch it (a) whenever I feel like it, and (b) without commercials (autoskip FTW).

If I had to watch grid-based appointment TV with commercials, I just wouldn’t.

I discovered the other day that cable, which I haven’t had in years, is just as bad if not worse. Apparently all the cable content has dived right to the bottom. I can’t imagine anyone paying cable TV prices to have that sort of programming delivered into their homes.

People say they have cable TV for background noise. I say it’s like paying a deranged homeless man to come into your house to shout out nonsense throughout the day because you’re lonely or bored.

Glommed onto my daughter’s student account to watch the first two episodes. I kinda sorta see what they are trying to do. It is obvious that each episode must include one tawdry reference, which doesn’t do a lot for me.

Agree with jalop1991 that a comedy based in/around a dealership -could- be amazing. (Nothing to keep ‘American Auto’ from covering the dealer/sales aspect?)

Wish I knew more about the business of television – if I did, some interesting parallels could be drawn between ‘legacy’ broadcasters and legacy automakers and how quickly things can change (or not). [Bonus: Clarkson/Hammond/May have a new special out as of yesterday.]

Fiber optic cable will soon be installed on my street (if you believe the pavement markings) and we are about to discover the answer to two pertinent* questions: i) Can internet data carried on a beam of light really be faster than a coaxial cable? ii) How does pricing power differ in a duopoly vs. a monopoly? * Pertinent to evil Comcast (NBC’s parent company) and to my checkbook

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