With ‘Welcome to Flatch,’ Fox Is Making An Unusual Bet That May or May Not Pay Off: TV Review

variety.com:

Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticThe most interesting thing about the new comedy “Welcome to Flatch” just might be the way in which Fox is rolling it out.

While the pilot episode will premiere March 17 on the broadcast network before airing weekly, the first seven (7!) episodes will also be available to stream on FoxNow and Hulu earlier that same day, thus giving curious viewers a chance to marathon half the season well before those who keep tuning in the traditional way.It might seem an odd approach at first glance, but the vast majority of comedies have always needed a few episodes to figure out the particular rhythms of their dialogue and cast chemistry — something “Welcome to Flatch” director Paul Feig knows well enough, having come in to “The Office” at the beginning of Season 2, right as the eventual smash hit was really beginning to gel.

So if Fox wants to find a new way to get its audience invested enough in a show to stick around for weekly episodes at a time when attention spans seem to be at an all-time low, giving them an advance look isn’t the worst idea. (It might’ve even been a great idea for something like Fox’s underrated and now canceled drama “The Big Leap,” but I digress.) Whether or not this tactic might work for “Welcome to Flatch” itself, though, is a trickier question.

From Feig and writer Jenny Bicks (“Sex and the City,” “The Greatest Showman”), and based on the UK series “This Country,” the show adopts a familiar enough mockumentary format to introduce a cast of eccentric characters, this time for the tiny fictional town of Flatch, Ohio (population 1,526).