User Reviews

This has to be one of the funniest shows on TV. The writing is sharp and quick-witted and the casting is perfect. Especially the actress who plays Rita. Whoopi Goldberg plays it politically incorrect all the way and offends just about everyone. Every one of my friends who have seen the show love it. If it's cancelled or doesn't do well in the ratings, it'll probably be because she stepped on some higher up's toes in the industry.This show will one day rest beside The Golden Girls, Designing Women, and The Nanny. Whoopi's old series "Bagdad Cafe" was excellent in the beginning episodes but everything changed halfway thru the series and it was eventually cancelled. Hopefully this won't happen to this series.

This show was so funny that I went to see a taping of it and I never missed a show when it was on nor has my husband and we would love to by the series if it ever comes out on DVD. Please Please Please Please release this TV show on DVD. This was some of her best work by far. I don't know what else to say besides I loved this show and was more than heart broken when NBC removed it from it's line up. Why it wasn't a hot item I can't understand. But if it ever comes out on DVD i will by it.

We found it to be so funny that we laughed until we cried. Wanda was just as funny as Whoopi, but Whoopi's supporting cast just gave it that edge and blended so well with her that we became hooked from the first show to the last and even watched the repeats.

Loved this show it was so funny I hate it was canceled. The critics liked as well I feel they just didn't give it enough time.

It was very polical but in a funny way. Whoopi Goldberg gave comedic performance. She was a Democrat and her Brother was a Republican and black which made it more interesting.

Her brother was a real suck up to wall street.

He is unemployed lives with his sister at her hotel that she owns.

She employs immigrants who are so funny I can't stop laughing.

This show is must watch in my eyes.

Her Republican Brothet has a ghetto white girlfriend who thinks she is black again you can't stop laughing.

May not be groundbreaking but it was certainly funny

I didn't catch the show when I first aired. What I was watching at that time I don't know, but I had no idea this show even existed. I only discovered it, 5... 6 years ago, and I think it's brilliant! Love the characters. I love Whoopi and the fact that she owns this hotel was perfect. The rest of the cast are hilarious too! Without going into detail, each have their thing that makes them stand out. Their chemistry works. This show was special and funny. Too bad it wasn't given enough time. It was just as funny as the other shows they had on at that time. 😒 I would buy the season if it was offered, 🤗

Leave it to Whoopi to toss the "P.C." guidelines out the window. The show is refreshing and drop dead funny. At times the humor is in your face, just as life can be. Can it be offensive? I don't think so. It's just refreshing to see and hear someone say what is on everyone's mind at the time.

The show basically points out that you can't take life too seriously.

The characters are all folks that we can identify with and may even know in passing in everyday life. The cast blends and works well off of each other. The chemistry for this ensemble works.

So tune in and enjoy the show.

Whoopi is surprisingly a very funny sitcom. Considering former big screen stars Television shows sucked (Bette, The Gena Davis Show). Whoopi actually has me laughing out loud every Tuesday night. Most of the comedy is based around ethnic houmour, but no one is safe, blacks, Arabs, whites, and Russians....but since everyone gets their turn at being picked on it isn't really offensive. Whoopi Goldburg does a good job as a grumpy hotel manager. And their is a great supporting cast as well. The Arab handyman is one of the funniest on the show along with Whoopi's brothers girlfriend who is a female version of eminem. Good show I give it an 8/10

This was neither as bad as some expected nor as good as Whoopi's best work might have indicated. The emphasis on timely social and political humor is a breath of fresh air in the modern sitcom world, because producers have become gun shy about possibly offending touchy viewers. I'm sure we'll be hearing from them about how every mention of ethnicity is automatically offensive, but many of those jokes in "Whoopi" are genuinely funny. The best part of the show is the chemistry between Mavis and Nasim, the Persian handyman. The banter between the two of them, both challenging and friendly, is a strong base to build a show on. Less successful is Mavis's uptight brother and his "Afrophilic" Caucasian wife. One can easily see how they were conceived as an ironic counterpoint, but both characters are much funnier in concept than they are in execution. Maybe when they become actual characters rather than schema they will be more entertaining.

I think the show has a great potential to make it. It reminds me of Married with children when it first came out. The humor is on the edge of been almost offensive to some people. But in reality, the humor is what people might be thinking but never say it out loud. I think the show is very real and that is what separates it from what is on television now. I think what will drive more people to watch the show is the controversy that it might cause because of it's edgy humor, but a lot of people will presently be surprised and addicted to the realness of the show.

This is the funniest sitcom I've seen in years. They took some time in the writing and production, and the Persian (I'm not an Arab!) guy reminds me of the hilarious Alexei Sayles. This could be the breakout hit NBC needs to replace Friends and their million plus salaries. "Whoopi" will be American television's "Fawlty Towers". Good job all around.

Americans might not find it funny, but for us Europeans, an American sitcom taking the Mickey out of George W. Bush junior. & Co. as well as the US's current and ongoing political paranoia toward anything remotely foreign or - if you prefer - alien is like manna sent from Heaven.

Whoopi's outspokenness and her hilarious one-liners directed at conservative America made me roar with laughter - even in the not particularly well dubbed German version. Whoopi's weird sense of humor might be perceived as outrageous or even un-American by Conservatives and/or Republicans, but from the perspective of Old Europe and a middle aged European, this brand of humor is exactly what America's media need to find their balance after years of kissing Dubya's feet.

Gutsy, innovative, abrasive, funny, at times hilarious, topical, thought-provoking, I can't say enough good things about this show and Whoopi! The only way to improve it would be to have Bruce Vilanch as a writer. Seriously. Courtney and Rita are an absolute delight, and Nassim and Jadwiga provide hilarious views on our arbitrary, confusing society and mores. I could live without the drinking and smoking shown, and hope that quitting these will be future episodes, with Lots of difficulties doing so to show the true nature of these debilitating addictions. The way the gay marriage scenes were handled were in very good taste, and I really like the digs Whoopi takes at Bush and Republicans, and want to see many more. Thanks.

This TV shwo is charming and very funny! Be sure to watch this every Tuesday at 7 on NBC.

Whoopi plays Mavis, a singer who retires after she made it big for a while. She then decided to re-open her hotels lounge. Whoopi's Persian/ Arabian friends is very funny and Rita, her daughter, is hilarious. She is white and she tries to act black. A great show!

Im very surprised that this is TV-14. This should be TV-PG DL.

It's nice to see Whoopi Goldberg on television again, but I'm not sure about this show. It's not that basing the series around running a hotel isn't interesting. It's the characters I don't click with. They're not all that interesting. And the one-liners are pretty bland. The show is funny at times, but most of the time things are pretty average.

Anthony Rupert

Whoopi's humor with funny takes on the experience of Arabs and Persians in the US since 9/11, black wannabes who are white, white wannabes who are black, older women and sex, and women as bosses makes for a hilarious thirty minutes. Even Slavs get a friendly dig in the ribs through the character of the hotel maid. Any show that can make me laugh about this country since 9/11 has got my vote! Whoopi slipped in wry jokes about current politics and tackled touchy subjects with grace. The only problem with the show is that it was too short. As the credits rolled by we always wished there were thirty minutes more. I'd love it if the show got a second chance so we could hear Whoopi's comments on post Katrina politics.

Network: NBC; Genre: Sitcom; Content Rating: TV-14; Classification: Contemporary (Star range: 1 - 4);

Season Reviewed: Complete Series (1 season)

Episodic TV had 3 reactions to September 11th and it's many aftereffect: 1) Ignore it, which is certainly viable, reasonable and understandable (I wouldn't fault any show for it) 2) use it to cheaply give some pseudo-resonance to their soap box speeches or 3) grab everything by the collar and take it head on. I'll leave it to you to decide which shows did which. But 'Whoopi' is the first (of many, I'm sure) raced out of the gate to be solely conceived with this target, "post 9/11 world", in mind. The show aims it's farce at terrorists, the color coded alert system, the anti-smoking Gestapo and even President George W. Bush himself. All of this is daring, sharp-edged stuff in concept. Had the show lasted it would have been interesting to see what other things it could take on.

But Whoopi Goldberg (the show is also just as much an attempt to desperately hoist her among the ranks of one-named celebrities) isn't the person to do it. Not because of her unabashed outspoken liberalism, as her fire-breathing hatred of the president is kept on a fairly even-handed muzzle in the series, but because Whoopi just isn't that funny and this show doesn't fair much better. Maybe that's just me, but I never thought she was. From her Comic Relief charity showcases to her overrated 'Sister Act' movies to her stint as the center square in Hollywood Squares to her disastrous performance as host of the 2001 Academy Awards – she's never made me laugh. Producers & Writers Bonnie & Terry Turner ('Third Rock from the Sun', 'That 70s Show') don't appear up to the task either. When juggling this type of material you can't just be edgy for the sake of it and 'Whoopi' doesn't quite have the strength of it's convictions to go dancing through this minefield with positive results. Instead, it does plenty of lazy name-dropping and hopes the recognition will get laughs. The show isn't pointed satire. It isn't a show of ideas or solutions. It is a effectively constructed soap box for Whoopi to rail about whatever bugs her. The fact that this show marginally overcomes the shortcomings of it's star and is actually better than Whoopi's act is an achievement in and of itself. But make no mistake, 'South Park' it ain't.

Everything about this show - from the characters to the setting to the topics - is made of stuff that looks like it seemed funny and original on paper. To often 'Whoopi' is narrowcast to things that only amuse it's star (/writer/producer) and, as you might imagine, that weighs the show down in racial jokes. The characters that populate Whoopi's hotel are outlines at best: her properly mannered lawyer brother who "acts white", his white girlfriend who "acts black", and a high-strung Persian man who is constantly being confused for an Arab (ok, that is a cute one). With little to no realization in the characters and the actor's inability to pull it off everything comes out feeling phony. They are all one-joke wonders. Once you've seen their act in one episode you've seen it all. Even Whoopi's Mavis, a lounge singer turned hotel manager, seems like a textbook sitcom construction. A lounge singer turned hotel manager? Is it me or does that sound more like a show you might see inside another show or, maybe, one in a string of goofy premises pitched in a network boardroom minutes before a midnight deadline? It's a callback to just a few years ago when the likes of Bette Midler, Joan Cusack and Geena Davis where gracing us with their own hum-drum, by-the-book self-titled sitcoms. In that class, I at least respect Whoopi for creating a rare series that challenges us. Even though she isn't funny.

What's really sad is to think that this was picked up instead of Phil Hendrie's "post-9/11 world" pilot 'Gated World'. We can only imagine how much better that show would have been.

* *

The premiere was exactly what I expected from the ads: not funny. That's a shame, because anyone who's seen Comic Relief, etc, knows that Whoopi Goldberg is simply one of the funniest, most original comics around, with beaucoup dramatic and comedic acting talent. But what passed as jokes in the premiere were nothing more than statements of various racial and ethnic stereotypes. And while I'm all for using comedy to try to get beyond them, simply describing one isn't a good joke. The white girl being the blackest person on the show seemed like it would be funny from the ads, but she ended up being just another Hollywood sendup of the flamboyantly full-of-attitude (stereotypical) black girl. Hopefully, now that the characters have been introduced and the stereotypes acknowledged, the show can get down to the characters' lives and just trying to be funny. Certainly, exaggerating stereotypes can be funny while eroding them at the same time. Just watch old "In Living Color" episodes if you doubt that. But there has to be some effort put into the jokes and writing. Whoopi Goldberg clearly has the talent and work ethic to make that happen, and the premise and characters certainly have plenty of potential. Put it to use and this show will work. A few more shows like the premiere and it'll be gone by Halloween, if not sooner. Star power alone won't keep it around. Remember "Watching Ellie"? "Whoopi" had better learn from that one. Here's hoping.

Whoopi: Whoopi plays Mavis Rae, a faded singer who decides to open her hotels lounge. Her brother Courtney and his Girfriend, Rita, come to the hotel and live in a room. Her friend Nasim is a helper at the hotel. And then there's the strange maid.

This new comedy is actually funny. Some of the jokes fall flat, but most of them don't fall, they make me laugh a lot. Rita is very funny acting black, and Nasim is quite funny. And the maid is very funny, too. I hope this doesn't get canceled.

WHOOPI:***1/2 out of *****

TV-14 contains profaintity, and some sexual references.

This is possibly the worst show on television right now. The script isn't the least bit funny, the jokes all fall flat, the cast is, well, let's be kind and not comment. It's really a train wreck and too sad to go on about.

After watching the first episode of this show, I have to say that I feel that I have wasted 30 minutes of my time. I have always been a fan of Whoopi's, however, everything seems so forced. I have yet to laugh at anything that has happened and it is 25 minutes into the show. No stars from me for this lackluster performance.

Whether its the fault of her outspoken annoying politics, or simply Chevy Chasitis, Whoopis career at long last seems to be petering out, and this self titled show will definitely be cited as cause on her showbiz career death certificate. The show featured her as a nightclub singer turned hotel owner, and the premise is hardly developed because the nitwits figured Whoopis star power would carry the show, and of course it couldn't and it didn't. The pitch is mostly jokes a la racial George Jefferson ranting that since George Jefferson went off the air, hasn't worked since. Whoopis tired anti-whitey stuff in fact now comes across more as mean spirited soap box rambling rather than comedic driven social commentary. Whoopi has always been singularly unfunny in my opinion, yet I do recognize and admire her talent as an actress. The producers would have done better to find her a drama crime vehicle and then sprinkle her humor throughout incidentally. But a half hour of insipid network humor starring Whoopi Goldberg just ain't gonna fly, and of course it didn't. Mercifully didn't.

Because if she came up with those jokes on her new show, I will not like her for the rest of my life. I'm only in the first 5 minutes of the pilot, and I have not cracked a smile yet. I am a comedy lover and if I have not laughed in the first 5 minutes, it's not a good sign. I didn't start laughing until minute 8 when the white girl opened her mouth. I'm a black girl so I think it is so funny when a white girl tries to act black. Otherwise, that's the only thing that's funny. I think the life of this show is numbered. I'm going to make a prediction. This show may not make it past it's first season.

I had high hopes for this show after seeing the promos. The writing and performances were decent enough but the situation doesn't seem to have anywhere to go. After all, how many different ways can you redo the "fish out of water style hotel manager surrounded by a bunch of misfits" gig? Bob Newhart set the bar pretty damn high some 21 years before this show; unfortunately some people in Hollywood still think they can do better.

Whoopi Goldberg is a great contemporary talent and she gave a respectable performance in the show opener, but she needs to cut back on the over-acting that was transparently intended to compensate for the shortcomings of the script.

Omid Djalili has a great style and hopefully will be around for years to come. If Omid can find the right vehicle, I predict his comedic talent to eventually reach the same level of success as Ray Romano. He did a very fine job in the first episode of "Whoopi" and unquestionably stole the show. If this show survives mid-season, Omid will undoubtedly deserve most of the on-screen credit.

As a whole, the cast did a reasonably good job with the opening script but I'm afraid the only way this show will continue past the first 6 weeks is to add some writing talent and provide a little depth for the scripts. It seems obvious that NBC started this weak first show of the series early enough to grow some roots in the audience before the competition strolled in for the season. I hope they give the show a chance to correct its short comings but I have my doubts.

On a more personal note, I found a few jokes in this show to be a little too edgy; if we can ever find humor in comments about the number of Middle Eastern people on airplanes, two years after September 11th, 2001 is quite a bit premature. If you don't agree with me, ask yourself how long it took, or will take, the U.S.A to find much humor in the events of December 7th, 1941. Some topics are permanently ingrained close to our patriotic nerves and "Whoopi" reveals some hints that Hollywood still hasn't learned that lesson.

I think "Whoopi" has a lot of potential and I really enjoyed the pilot. Omid was even funnier than he was in "The Mummy" and he and Whoopi have a lot of chemistry together. They can banter beautifully. It wasn't perfect, I think the writing could improve, but it's a good start and makes me interested to see the rest of the season.

...and the timing for this thing rivals that of the introduction of the Edsel. Don't get me wrong; I love Whoopi, Terry & Bonnie Turner are tops in their craft and the rest of the ensemble are aces. But to premiere this show, with a character of middle eastern descent (I know; he's not an Arab...he's Persian!) spouting lines about working on Iranian missile systems "[they] don't have", holding a pipe like it was a rifle, telling his co-workers his people are "everywhere" might have been just a tad insensitive in the same week as the anniversary of 9/11. And then they repeated it! I'm sure there are many in New York City, as well as the various communities of persons of middle eastern descent, not to mention families of service men and women stationed in Iraq who would just as soon seen repeats of "Will & Grace" in those time slots. Maybe this kind of thing seemed funny when they wrote it in January or whenever, but not right now...