Kevin premieres April 20 on Prime Video.
By Elazar Abrahams
Theoretically, the new adult animated sitcom Kevin should be right up TV and City’s alley. Not only does the show take place in New York City, but it’s specifically set in Queens, highlighting Astoria and its surrounding neighborhoods. It clearly wants to celebrate the local texture of that world. So you can bet that this site was rooting for it.
Unfortunately, Kevin makes you realize how crowded the genre has become. Adult animation is a dime a dozen these days, and even when a show has a charming hook, that hook alone is not enough anymore. You need a sharper comedic voice, stronger character definitions, or at least one memorable swing that separates you from the pack. Kevin never really delivers that separation.
The premise is simple and cute: Kevin, a housecat voiced by Jason Schwartzman, decides he’s done with humans after his owners break up, and he ends up at a local pet rescue in Astoria, where a whole ecosystem of people and animals swirl around him.
The jokes are fine. The scenarios are fine. The episodes move. The show is never offensively bad, and there are definitely worse things to throw on in the background. It’s just incredibly forgettable, and forgettable might be the worst sin for a comedy built around a high-concept mascot.
Part of that is the voice work. Outside of Amy Sedaris, who brings her usual sharp weirdness and instantly wakes up the scenes she’s in, much of the voice acting feels serviceable. There’s a big name bench here, including Aubrey Plaza and Whoopi Goldberg, plus the kind of guest-star energy you can imagine being fun in a recording booth, but the characters themselves rarely land with enough specificity to stick in your brain after an episode ends.
Ultimately, Kevin is a fine concept stretched into an entire season without the comedic or emotional hooks required to make it feel essential. If you’re an animal lover, or a diehard adult animation completionist, you might enjoy it as light viewing. But in a landscape where shows like this have to fight for attention, Kevin never gives viewers a strong reason to choose it over the many better, sharper, weirder options already out there.
I give Kevin a C.
TV and City 