Review Roundup: What Do Critics Think of Apple TV's CENTRAL PARK?

Apple TV+ is set to debut Central Park, a brand new musical animated series from Josh Gad, Loren Bouchard, and Nora Smith. The series follows the Tillermans, a family that lives in Central Park. Owen, the park manager, and Paige, his journalist wife, raise their kids Molly and Cole in the world's most famous park, while fending off hotel heiress Bitsy Brandenham and her long suffering assistant Helen, who would love nothing more than to turn the park into condos.

The voice cast of Central Park includes Josh Gad, Leslie Odom, Jr., Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Tituss Burgess, Daveed Diggs and Stanley Tucci. Central Park premieres May 29 on Apple TV.

Find out what the critics thought of Central Park below!

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Caroline Framke, Variety:

Even as the show is still honing its particular version of New York City four episodes in, its characters are generally sharp and funny enough to keep it zipping along in the meantime. If it can get a better grip on its setting and give THE FAMILY comedy at its heart more room amongst everything else, "Central Park" could bloom into something special.

Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter:

Central Park is pleasant, amiable and sometimes funny, but probably not hugely impactful. As a musical, Central Park is something wonderful, a joyful and elating experience almost guaranteed to put a smile on your face at a moment when pure pleasure is a welcome salve.

Kristen Baldwin, Entertainment Weekly:

Central Park was originally developed for Fox, but its switch to Apple TV+ is likely a blessing. This show feels less like an Animation Domination placeholder and more of a piece with the charming lit-com weirdness of a show like Dickinson. Even the poet herself might be tickled by a song that rhymes "son and daughter" with "dirty hot-dog water."

Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone:

Central Park's songs are so infectious that the show's areas for improvement were really only apparent well after I'd stopped watching each episode. Central Park may not already be, as Birdie sings, central in my heart, but the music alone already has it much closer than a show this young has any business being.

Gregory Lawrence, Collider:

The music, from a chordal, compositional standpoint (told ya I was gonna geek), also helps speak to the textual and tonal melancholies going on in the DNA of the show. Central Park isn't just a show about nice people doing nice things. It's rife with difficult, emotion-driven complications. It's a serialized deep-dive into the procedures of local politics. It's tackling huge issues like gentrification, classism, and waste management. There's a very adult understanding behind the childlike wonder of the show - and the chords of the tunes tell this story, too.

Josh Spiegel, Consequence of Sound:

Central Park is littered with a cast whose singing talents vastly outpace those of the cast of Bob's Burgers, as all of its lead players have stage experience. (A couple of them even have well-deserved Tony Awards.) When you have the original Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson from Hamilton, and also the voices of Anna and Olaf from Frozen, it's a safe bet that the music will be performed remarkably well. And it is quite lovely to listen to, from the start.

Jennifer Bisset, CNET:

Central Park is more concerned with celebrating the weird and weirder characters of a New York teeming with tourists who want to put vests on squirrels. You know what you're going to get with Central Park: the sweet escapades of an eccentric family, who occasionally break into raps about statutes and flowers. All of it soars.

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