Acted with a certain amount of charm and riddled with lame jokes, Superstore seems like the kind of sitcom NBC might have programmed in the mid-1990s, somewhere between Boston Common and The Single Guy.
Golden Globe winner America Ferrera is as charming as ever as the overly dedicated assistant manager who tries to rein in a crew that's supposedly too wacky, but none are really allowed to let their freak flags fly.
It's exploitation of humorous (and sometimes sad) retail tropes - including this week's plot device of a sales contest that leads to a pizza party - continues to work wonders.
And yet! Superstore is delightful! Good, even, in its way! The show is, despite and very much because of its shortcomings, extremely successful as a piece of pop-cultural confectionery.
Like the type of operation it represents, Superstore has a little bit of everything, not all of it good, but there are gems to be had in a few departments.