By embarrassing, I’m referring specifically to the early scene in which Azaria’s Alex is forced by his boss, Stephen (Anthony Head) to talk about his most recent sexual encounter. It would require a lewd vocabulary of Louis C.K.-esque proportions to make that sort of demand funny. But because this is broadcast TV, the series of euphemisms Alex is compelled to come up with were just stop-the-show dull, and Stephen glee seemed forced. (I’m not usually one of those the-Brits-do-it-better kind of guys, but I did watch the original, British version of this sitcom, which BBC America will air next month and which also co-stars Head, and it was much better, because the sex talk was more blunt, more imaginatively absurd, more — how can I put it? — dirty!)
The other unaccountable flaw in Free Agents is that Azaria seems to have zero chemistry with Kathryn Hahn’s Helen.
Hahn is a very good actor (she plays one of the few characters I find interesting in HBO’s humid Hung), but she and Azaria, for all their laughing, crying, and sexing, just don’t spark to each other…
[via - watching-tv.ew.com]