US critics generally have given a warmer reception to NBC’s Australian-shot series Camp than Oz broadcasters.
Australian executives who watched the pilot episode of the series set in a US summer camp for kids thought it was targeted at young teens and judged it as too silly and juvenile to appeal to adults.
Well, the US audience may be broader than that judging by the first batch of reviews; the Tweed Valley, NSW-lensed show premieres on NBC on Wednesday at 10 pm.
Rachel Griffiths stars as a newly-divorced camp director/owner who is looking for a fresh start. Rodger Corser is the Aussie who owns a rival camp and offers to buy her out.
The LA TV Insider Examiner’s Danielle Turchiano opined, “There are moments in Camp where the show lives up to its name in that reactions or outright dialogue feel over the top and cheeky in that 'they're about to break into song any second, aren't they?' sort of way.
“ But it's hard to blame them for having overly excited personalities, that's the sense of unknown that comes with any summer, let alone one where they know they are set up to fall in and out of love and have adventures and misadventures alike.”
She concluded, “Once you get there, you may find you never want to leave.”
The San Francisco Chronicle's David Wiegand said the show has a promise that’s “not always easy to see through the dense thicket of characters and subplots.” He added, “Camp essentially needs to calm down and narrow its central focus on maybe half the characters and storylines it bombards us with.”
Variety’s Brian Lowry wittily commented, “The forecast for NBC’s Camp would best be described as cloudy, with a chance of Meatballs. Filmed in Australia, the summer-camp dramedy is filled with all the requisite clichés, yet the premiere stumbles onto some promising moments in its dual-generation plots involving the kids and camp owner/director.
“The second hour, however, is a tiresome mess, and the characters aren’t consistently strong enough to make this show much more than a summer fling, distinguished more by its financing model than its been-around-the-lake situations.”
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Rob Owen found the show has a “sweetness that makes it a nice summer diversion but nothing that elevates it above past comedies set at sleepaway camp.”
The Seven Network has the rights to Camp, the final show covered by its since-expired output deal with NBCUniversal. It'll probably air here in the summer.