I'm in love. I'm a HUGE Robin Williams fan from way back. His schtick has always worked for me. His "A Night at the Met" concert remains one of my all-time favorite comedy concerts ever. The fact that they get him to run loose on this show? Tickles me to no end. I am exactly the target audience for this show.
It helps that a lot of the cast can hold its own. James Wolk, who plays Bob Benson on Mad Men, manages to mostly keep up with Williams, and Hamish Linklater, who was one of the two saving graces from Old Christine (the other being Clark Gregg, of course), just makes me smile with his hangdog style. It's harder to adjust to SMG as someone not Buffy, but by the end of the third episode, I was buying it. She has the unfortunate task of playing straight man to Williams, and it's probably going to take time to settle into that, but I think she can do it.
Is it perfect? Oh no. I've read criticisms that the product placement is annoying, that Mad Men manages to be about an ad agency without seeming like an ad, but I think that's a little unfair. The products, and more importantly, the campaigns are integral to MM, but the reasons they're not as focus-pulling are that it's a) a larger ensemble, b) an hour-long format, and c) viewers are more invested in the characters not to notice as much. Crazy Ones needs more time for that last to happen. We don't know enough about these characters yet to stray too far from the workplace comedy. They started to get into that more with the third episode, exploring more of Williams and SMG's relationship, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
In the meantime, it makes me laugh. A lot. I love the outtakes over the end credits (SMG's Buffy reference in episode three killed me), and Kelly Clarkson surprised me in the first ep by actually being believable. I am totally watching this as long as I can.
