The Chair Company (TV Series 2025) Review: An Audacious Midlife Crisis Comedy Dipped into Tim Robinson’s Brand of Absurdist Humor

Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin, who have been collaborating for over a decade, reunite on “The Chair Company,” a comedy series where Robinson plays a middle-aged man consumed by a conspiracy theory. The premise may sound like something you have already seen happen to your parents, neighbors, or relatives, and that’s partly the point.

The show, like most Robinson-led comedies, strikes a chord with you despite its absurd chain of events and Robinson’s peculiar delivery style. His sketches in “I Think You Should Leave” have constantly found that balance. On the surface, they seem like a string of characters acting randomly for the sake of it, but there’s always an underlying emotional truth, traceable in our lives.

Some address our anxiety in misreading social cues, while others reveal our insatiable hunger for emotional connection. Some expose our discomfort with social niceties, while others reveal our fears of change or irrelevance. That’s what makes them addictive. No matter how many times you return to them, there’s always something to pull you in, and it’s not only Robinson’s uproarious style. Of course, Robinson expresses a surprising range of emotions within seconds, eerily similar to Gen. Turgidson from “Dr. Strangelove,” and is dialed in to a meter of an 8 or 9 when the situation demands a 2 or 3. Yet that strangeness and loudness are only part of his appeal; we return to his work for its underlying emotion.

It is easily traceable in the ‘shirt-brother’ sketch, where Robinson’s character meets an older man who wants to abandon every written or unwritten societal norm, determined to break all rules as if he were Jack Black from “The School of Rock.” Instead of limiting itself to this hilarious hypothetical, Robinson builds a relatable story of a middle-aged man tired of the drivel, only to realize the people he does it for: his family. So, we shed a tear or two for this man, as he discovers the potential that lies even in his dull life, otherwise consumed by Sisyphean labor. “The Chair Company” extends on this exact idea to underscore a middle-aged man’s profound sadness without losing its absurdist soul.

This time, Robinson plays William, a mid-level manager at an architecture firm overseeing a shopping mall plan that is supposed to enter construction soon. It seems like his dream project, something he has put his heart and soul into, something he wants to be remembered by. However, he is living in a time when people don’t care about malls as they used to. So, he complains in a passive-aggressive way, but beneath his bickering, we can sense his existential dread. Is this all my life amounted to? He wonders.

There’s, of course, this very male fixation with ‘legacy’ beneath his pathos, but there’s also a deep sense of loss of the years lost and the unfulfilled potential. In one of its early episodes, he weeps while listening to an old song online, reading the comment section echoing his anguish. While tinged with millennial-coded nostalgia, it conveys a universal dread of realizing your naive expectations straying farther and farther from reality.

William’s not the only character who feels stuck in a life that feels like an obligation and looks for a form or a reason to escape. The theme recurs in the arcs of his wife Barb (Lake Bell), their daughter (Sophia Lillis), their son Seth (Will Price), and their boss Jeff (Lou Diamond Phillips). Even his friend Mike (Joseph Tudisco) and his colleague Douglas (James Downey) unwittingly seek a way out of some trap. While the interconnectedness makes it all stimulating, the direction makes their pain linger till long after. That’s hardly surprising, considering Andrew DeYoung and Aaron Schimberg were handling the directorial duties. DeYoung has already worked with Robinson on “Friendship,” while Schimberg directed last year’s “A Different Man.”

DeYoung’s film is about a self-absorbed man swallowed by a tragedy of his own making. Still, it is also a creepily relatable look into the difficulties in forming adult friendships. The show lends him a canvas to balance the tragic with the comic, where every emotional outburst sounds like a cry for help. Schimberg comes with his experience of marrying the surreal with the humane, which comes in handy in a show that constantly swings between those exact narrative tones.

One moment you listen to Aimee Mann’s gentle ballad, and the next moment you see a man comforted by his perverse, sexual fantasies. The writers often take similarly creative leaps of faith, leading to awkward tonal transitions between its moments. Yet, it all becomes a part of its intentional use of cringe-laden humor. Some of these gags land while others don’t, but that doesn’t drag down the show’s broader appeal.

It features memorable characters that make an impression even if they appear fleetingly on screen. Some of it is due to its peculiar blend of diction and idiosyncrasies, but it’s also because their concerns are plausible and understandable within the context and strangely relatable. So, even when William’s conspiracy theories border on undue paranoia, you resonate with the psychological roots.

The mystery of whether his theories hold becomes secondary to wanting to understand why they would get sucked into them. You know why someone would seek distractions to relieve pain, and you also understand how those distractions can lead you into a rabbit hole, which can incapacitate you even from doing things you’re perfectly capable of.

The show makes us empathize with its characters despite their vexations, while sinking us deeper into a rabbit hole of theories, compelling us to look for connections like its characters. We hear stories about an appendix, a donated heart, and a tiny yet integral piece of a chair, all of which reflect characters’ underlying fear of being deemed unnecessary or replaceable. So, they make or break bonds for existential reasons. That makes this whimsical ride sufficiently thought-provoking.

Robinson remains the core focus of the first season’s script, with Tudisco coming second as William’s new friend. The writing embraces the outrageous nature of Robinson’s comedic style while analyzing William’s turmoil as a constant undercurrent. It, however, could have given more attention to Barb, another part of William’s story, who appears only as a part of his life. We hear about the gloomy past of their relationship, but the script doesn’t explore her ennui as it does his. Since the second season has been greenlit, it can flesh out her arc and make her seem more like a person than a pillar or an extension of his life.

Be that as it may, the first season of “The Chair Company” is still a glowing introduction to Kanin and Robinson’s comedic minds at work in an episodic format with an ongoing narrative without losing touch with their infectiously silly shenanigans.

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The Chair Company (TV Series 2025) Links: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Wikipedia
The Chair Company (TV Series 2025) Cast: Tim Robinson, Lake Bell, Sophia Lillis, Will Price, Joseph Tudisco

Where to watch The Chair Company