The Shop

 ( 2010s American Black Television Series ) 

Meredith Blake of the Los Angeles Times published a lukewarm review of the first episode, writing, "Though the effort to capture the vibrance and tell-it-like-it-is spirit of the African American barbershop met with slightly mixed results in the first episode, The Shop is more than worth a return visit," and adding "stylish black-and-white photographs of guests arriving at the shop serve as act breaks and enhance the show's documentary feel. But the choppy editing sometimes removes context from the conversation, offering little sense of how one subject flows to the next."

Billy Haisley of Deadspin wrote a more critical review of The Shops first episode, questioning its candidness. Haisley referred to other outlets' comments on the episode, writing," Amazing: Slate, the Washington Post, and HBO all agree that an edited, literally filtered TV program created, produced, and starring a world-famous athlete with a notoriously and meticulously maintained image is best described as 'unfiltered.' The Ringer and the Sporting News at least consulted a thesaurus before copying The Shops press release language, writing, respectfully, that the episode was 'honest' and 'candid.'" Haisley added, "The point here isn't that the things LeBron and Co. say in The Shop are insincere or fake or anything of the sort ... Rather, the point is that the things said in The Shop are calculated, risk-free, decidedly filtered, stated for the predominant purpose of bolstering LeBron's brand. It's to position LeBron as a bold truth-teller without him having to actually tell any bold truths. And it should be treated as such." Carrie Battan of The New Yorker wrote positively of the show's candidness, however, commenting: "Theoretically, The Shop should have been yet another affirmation of our worst suspicions—that we would only ever get to see our superheroes in sanitized, strictly controlled ways. But James has offered a potent rebuttal to the argument that celebrities can't make interesting, revelatory content about themselves and their colleagues."

Battan wrote a positive review of The Shop, following its first season, as she opined positively on the series' setting "designed to generate the sense of candor, camaraderie, and intimacy that happens inside African-American barbershops." Battan conceded "she not operate under the delusion that this show is a purely unfiltered, candid, and unprecedentedly revealing look at the assembled stars. There are plenty of platitudes and generalities being proffered here," but opined that The Shop "does exactly what the best celebrity profiles have always aspired to do: delight, surprise, inform."

Due to the series airing during James' basketball career, sports media outlets naturally covered The Shop, focusing on segments that dealt with James' presence in basketball. The ongoings of James' first season as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers lent themselves to discussion topics on the series, which led to further coverage by sports media. For example, Anthony Davis was the subject of rumors regarding an attempt to trade him to the Lakers at the time of his appearance on The Shop. The series also chronicled James' and fellow Lakers teammate Lonzo Ball's reactions to Magic Johnson stepping down from his Lakers front office role during the 2019 offseason; this was also noted by sports media outlets.

• www.hbo.com/the-shop on HBO—The official website for the series in the United States.
• —A user-generated database of information related to the series.