Workaholics Review: Three Men Refuse to Grow Up for Seven Seasons — and It Works

Workaholics is a comedy about three men who refuse to grow up. It ran for seven seasons on Comedy Central, from April 6, 2011, to March 15, 2017, and it never stopped being what it started out to be: a show about three recent college dropouts who drink, party, prank each other, and call people pretending to sell insurance.

Blake Anderson, Adam Devine, and Anders Holm created the series and star in it. They play Blake Henderson, Adam DeMamp, and Anders “Ders” Holmvik, three friends who live together in Rancho Cucamonga, California, and work at a telemarketing company called TelAmeriCorp. The show follows their schemes, their clashes with their boss, and their endless interactions with their drug dealer.

The Core Trio

The friendship at the center of Workaholics is the engine of the whole thing. Blake and Adam were roommates in college; Anders was their RA. After graduation, they kept doing everything they did in school, only now they had jobs and apartments and actual responsibilities. The show treats their refusal to act like adults as a strength, not a flaw.

Jillian Bell plays Jillian Belk, Maribeth Monroe plays Alice Murphy, and Erik Griffin plays Montez Walker. Kyle Newacheck plays Karl Hevacheck. These four characters fill out the world around the trio, giving them coworkers, neighbors, and romantic interests who mostly serve as obstacles to be overcome.

The Office and the House

The two main settings are a cubicle at TelAmeriCorp and a house in Rancho Cucamonga. The office is where the trio gets yelled at by their boss and forced to make cold calls. The house is where they drink beer, play video games, and plan their next big scheme. The contrast between the two spaces drives the show’s rhythm: one place is boring and stressful, the other is chaotic and fun.

The show’s humor comes from watching the trio try to balance those two worlds. They want to be successful adults, but they keep getting pulled back into childish behavior. That tension is the show’s central joke, and it never stops working.

Season One vs. Later Seasons

The show’s best moments come in its first season. That’s when the trio is still finding their footing, and the show is still figuring out what kind of comedy it wants to be. The early episodes lean heavily on physical comedy and practical jokes, and they land better than anything else the series attempts.

Later seasons lean more on character-based jokes and romantic subplots. Some of these work. Some of them don’t. The show’s quality dips in the middle seasons before recovering somewhat in the final stretch.

What Works and What Doesn’t

The show’s strengths are its commitment to its characters and its willingness to repeat itself. There is no arc, no growth, and no real stakes. The trio remain the same people from beginning to end, and the show trusts that audiences will find that consistency comforting rather than dull.

That trust pays off most of the time. The show’s best episodes are the ones that let the trio be themselves, without forcing them to change or evolve. The weakest episodes are the ones that try to push the characters into new directions, and those attempts usually fall flat.

The show also has a problem with pacing. Some episodes feel padded, with jokes that could have been cut. Others feel rushed, ending before they’ve finished their setup. The inconsistency is the show’s biggest weakness, and it shows up most clearly in the later seasons.

Final Word

Workaholics is a show about three men who refuse to grow up, and it spends seven seasons proving that refusal is funny. It’s not a deep show, and it doesn’t pretend to be. It’s a show about drinking, partying, and pranking, and it does that very well.

The show’s best episodes are its first few. The later seasons are less sharp, but they’re still enjoyable in a low-key way. If you’re looking for a show that rewards patience, this isn’t it. If you’re looking for a show that delivers consistent laughs, this is closer to what you want.

Workaholics is a solid, uneven sitcom that knows exactly what it is and doesn’t apologize for it. It’s not the greatest comedy of its era, but it’s a reliably entertaining one. It’s worth watching if you enjoy this kind of humor, and it’s worth skipping if you want something deeper.

Adam Devine · Blake Anderson · Comedy Central · comedy review · TV sitcom · Workaholics