Fuller House on Netflix panned as 'sugary garbage' by critics

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"content_original","fid":"91544","attributes":{"class":"media-image"}}]]Fuller House, a spin-off from the 1990s US comedy Full House, has landed on Netflix - and critics have few kind words to say about it.

The original show featured Bob Saget as widower Danny Tanner, who was trying to raise his three daughters DJ (Candace Cameron Bure), Stephanie (Jodie Sweetin) and Michelle (Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen).

In Fuller House, DJ is now grown up, widowed and trying to raise her three sons, with the help of Danny and Stephanie.

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"The two plots are basically carbon copies of one another," says Stephen Daw at the Radio Times. "It's like they say – if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

The reaction on social media has been largely positive. "It's actually everything I've ever wanted," wrote one viewer. "Fuller House on Netflix is so amazing! Reminds me of growing up watching this show," said another.

But while fans cheered, critics were left unimpressed. "The show isn't just bad, it borders on the obscene," says Joshua Alston at AV Club, who describes it as "porn parody without the porn".

Daniel Fienberg at The Hollywood Reporter complains the show takes 35 minutes to establish a plot that turns out to be an inversion of the original premise.

The premiere is "almost non-stop references to the original series" and has "no desire to live as its own thing", he adds.

Fuller House is "sugary garbage that might drive you to madness if you watch enough of it", says Tim Surette at TV.com, although he is among several critics to point out that the show at least honours its predecessor incredibly well.

"We have only ourselves to blame", says Richard Lawson at Vanity Fair. "It's our own noxious nostalgia that dragged the ABC family sitcom out of its grave, where it had been resting somewhat peacefully for 20 years, while we the living memed it and teased it and did whatever else we could to it, to prove our superior wit, yes, but also to affirm our important, clued-in place around the pool of cultural memory."

The cast have also brushed off the criticism, with Cameron Bure pointing out that critics "never had a good thing to say" about Full House and yet it ran for eight years in primetime and the repeats have been shown ever since.