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Free Ride
SERIES: Fox, Sunday 9:30p (30 minutes)


6.0

based on 26 reviews
read critic reviews
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based on 57 votes
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Get more information on this show at TV.com.

Official Show Site

Starring Josh Dean, Loretta Fox, Allan Havey, Erin Cahill, and Dave Sheridan

This partially-improvised sitcom follows a recent UC Santa Barbara graduate as he moves back home to live with his parents in a small Missouri town.

GENRE(S):	Comedy
CREATED BY:	Rob Roy Thomas
FIRST AIR DATE:	March 1, 2006

After the premiere on Wed 3/1 at 9:30p, the series settles into its regular Sunday 9:30p timeslot on 3/12.

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Newsday Diane Werts

The best thing about "Free Ride" is the lack of pressure to be about something. Trusting its talented cast to embody their own truths, it ambles and weaves, leaving space for the characters, even folks briefly bumped into, to nail a specific attitude or situation.

Washington Post Tom Shales

The results are often wickedly amusing.

Kansas City Star Aaron Barnhart

A goofy and likable new comedy.

Time James Poniewozik

Good-hearted, eccentric and wry, Ride goes nowhere fast, but it has a fine time getting there.

Variety Brian Lowry

There's a breezy charm to the show.

Los Angeles Times Paul Brownfield

"Free Ride" is a bit more than passably good, but like "Arrested [Development]" it feels hard to love.

New York Post Adam Buckman

Portions of "Free Ride" show promise, due mainly to the show's star -- Dean -- whose character remains grounded and sane, against all odds.

Village Voice Joy Press

Everything about Free Ride is slightly exaggerated and artificial, including the odd facial expressions.

Detroit Free Press Mike Duffy

[It has] just enough funny, semi-improvised moments to make you wish it was better.

Hollywood Reporter Barry Garron

When the show clicks, as it does in several scenes, the improvised performances have a more natural look and feel than typical sitcom scripts. Elsewhere, the comedy feels forced and staged.

Entertainment Weekly Alynda Wheat

Free Ride can't milk any fresh laughs from this fish-back-in-water tale. [3 Mar 2006, p.96]

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Rob Owen

More of an amusing diversion than a laugh riot.

People Weekly Tom Gliatto

The show... is partly improvised, a stunt used to richer effect on ABC's upcoming Sons & Daughters. [6 Mar 2006, p.41]

Boston Globe Matthew Gilbert

It's made of familiar slacker material that's slightly freshened with an improvisatory feel as the actors um-and-ah their way to their punch lines. And it's blissfully missing the canned laughs that make the likes of ''That '70s Show" so obnoxious. Still, ''Free Ride" is far from essential TV viewing.

The New York Times Alessandra Stanley

Mr. Dean is appealing as Nate and Mr. Sheridan is amusing as Dove, but the tone of the series is uneven.

USA Today Robert Bianco

What you get from this sometimes outlandish family comedy is a sweet Ride, but one that is neither funny nor believable enough to command your loyalty.

Salon Heather Havrilesky

It's not that bad, which leads me to believe that it could actually be good, if it weren't so neutered and lovable.

TV Guide Matt Roush

A fresh approach can take you only so far when the material is this tired.

New York Daily News David Hinckley

This "Free Ride," I suspect, will be over very soon.

Chicago Tribune Sid Smith

Harmless and intermittently amusing, winning points by letting its actors indulge in improvisation, "Free Ride" is nevertheless about as unpromising as its lead character's aimless career goals.

San Jose Mercury News Charlie McCollum

"Free Ride" is crude, mean-spirited, and not nearly as fresh and innovative as the producers think it is.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Melanie McFarland

"Free Ride," though improvised, feels like every other Fox comedy that has come and gone: It has generic young stars stuck in a stale boy-pines-for-girl story line.

San Francisco Chronicle Tim Goodman

This is a series that shimmers with potential -- until Dove shows up. Someone at the network must have thought "Free Ride" was too irreverently weird and creatively nuanced, so they made Dove as annoyingly cartoonish as possible.

Chicago Sun-Times Doug Elfman

Tonight's premiere episode doesn't have a single laugh in it.

Miami Herald Glenn Garvin

This kind of comedy only stands a dim ghost of a chance if it has a lot of gratuitous nudity and substance abuse, along with the words ''National Lampoon'' in the title.

Philadelphia Inquirer Jonathan Storm

Everything's so shrill and flat, it's hard to tell when the writing stops and the improvisation begins.

The average user rating for this tv show is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 57 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jules B. gave it a10:
This was a funny show. I wish you would bring it back. Parents who have kids going off to college or graduating from college and coming home again LOVED this SHOW!! I hope it goes to DVD. Nate, his parents and Nate's best friend were hilarious!!!!

sucks ddean gave it a0:
awful. the lead actor kid, josh?? whatever his name is - i cannot stand him.

dennis mennis gave it a0:
family members should not be able to vote! the show was cancelled because it was awful. if people tuned in and gave it ratings then the network would have kept it-let it go mothers, fathers, grandmas, granpas- your actor relitives took part in a crappy show and most of them are bad actors!!

Dave G gave it a9:
The charaterisation in this this show was unbeliveliable. With its quickly delivered lines and highly casmatic cast I cant understand why it was taken off the air?

Christian D gave it a10:
love it

Joe V gave it a10:
Absolute Corker, bring it back please!!!

D. D. gave it an8:
Why did Free Ride go off the air? Is this show coming back on the air - meaning back on freely avalable broadcast TV (versus only on cable) - soon? Posted July 15, 2006

Free Ride SERIES: Fox, Sunday 9:30p (30 minutes)

Free Ride
SERIES: Fox, Sunday 9:30p (30 minutes)