Some women and gays of my acquaintance think Jason Ritter is the dreamiest, but I find him a big bland ball of nothing. How much you enjoy “Kevin Saves The World” may have a lot to do with how much you like Ritter, who stars as a once-suicidal loser who touches a meteor and is visited by an angel who instructs him to hug a lot of people.
The dopey “Kevin” reminds a little of 2003’s better “Joan of Arcadia,” which also starred Ritter and followed a teen who kept getting missions from God.
“Kevin” is especially disappointing because it comes to us from the writing team Tara Butters and Michelle Fazekas, who gave us the hilarious CW pilot for “Reaper” a decade ago.
Yvette, the angel, is nowhere near as entertaining as that codger who saved the suicidal George Bailey in “It’s A Wonderful Life.” At least to me.
... it inevitably misses the mark. The end result is sappy, confusing and often dull. …
... Kevin will probably not save the world because Kevin will probably get canceled … seems to be taking on, well, the world, and it might be too much for one show.
... Ritter is a likable, able comic actor who shines in big parts and little ones, though I am not quite sure that he has been perfectly cast here…
… The first episode is so sappy it belongs on pancakes — and, yes, I realize the world is hurting, but patronizingly low-grade inspirational junk like this is not the answer to anyone’s problems.
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
... succeeds because it avoids being sappy at every turn. Yvette isn’t angelically other-worldly but a pleasantly opinionated woman with a sassy sense of humor. Kevin is the only one who can see or hear her, which results in some seemingly one-sided conversations witnessed by others. …
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:
... does not work well in execution. The rules explained by the angel (Kimberly Hebert Gregory, replacing Cristela Alonso from the pilot) are both complicated and nebulous, and it’s not clear what Kevin is supposed to do beyond being a do-gooder. …
... if you can stomach the feel-goodery of connecting to people through embrace, Kevin’s crash course in appreciating the wonders of shared humanity is a little sweet and a little funny — and best of all, original, which is more than can be said for a lot of other debuting dramas. …
10 p.m. Tuesday. ABC.
