Most critics respond warmly to This Is Us, praising its intimate family stories and a cast that makes potentially cloying material convincing. The performances draw the most consistent approval, with Milo Ventimiglia, Mandy Moore, Sterling K. Brown and Chrissy Metz among those singled out. Favourable reviews also credit the dialogue and humour with keeping the sentimentality in check. For these critics, the programme’s kindness towards ordinary people gives its emotional turns enough substance to land.
The disagreement concerns how deliberately those emotions are engineered. Even positive reviews note contrivances and question whether the interconnected storytelling can sustain its appeal beyond the pilot. Variety admires several performances but finds the central twist makes the storytelling difficult to judge. The Ringer is the clear negative outlier, arguing that cheap surprises substitute for substantial characters and conflict. The spread is wide, then, despite a firmly positive majority.