Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty spin-off President Curtis begins weakly but improves into a mildly entertaining diversion, according to this review. Centring on the recurring US president character Andre Curtis, it lacks the parent series’ most inventive, anarchic energy, but later episodes become funnier and more focused than the unpromising pilot.

Keith David returns as Curtis, a divorced president more interested in vigilante missions and online gaming with citizens than governing. Created by Dan Harmon and James Siciliano, the 10-episode first season uses smaller threats linked to American history, civics and government—beginning with Curtis claiming to have killed a cannibalistic Paul Bunyan—rather than the grander multiverse stakes of Rick and Morty.