‘The Great Indoors’ seems a little claustrophobic

The old guy working with young people is time-tested concept for comedies. Usually, theyoung ‘uns have new tricks for the oldster to learn while he teaches them wisdom and so forth. You get the picture.

In the CBS sitcom “The Great Indoors,” Joel McHale plays a famous adventure reporter named Jack who works for an outdoors magazine. Jack climbs, Jack hikes, Jack lives with bears. He’s the real thing. But like all print journalism outlets, his publication is facing tough times. So he’s called in by his boss, Roland (Stephen Fry), and told he is being put in charge of the digital desk, a group of millennials.

Jack’s task is to teach them about the outside world. Their ideas are more along the lines of, What’s the best piece of camping gear to use to kill a zombie? (Tent stakes, obviously.) Then Jack reminds them zombies aren’t real.

It doesn’t take long before one of them, Clark (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), gets offended by Jack, who gets sent off to be scolded by human resources.

Brooke (Susannah Fielding), Roland’s daughter, is runs day-to-day operations and doles out trophies to her nerd herd like they were in

THE GREAT INDOORS

What: Joel McHale stars as an outdoors journalist put in charge of the digital department at his magazine.

When: Premieres 8:30 p.m. Thursday.

Where: CBS. youth sports.

The twist in “The Great Indoors” is that the millennials have no clue about what they are writing and posting about. These aren’t the typical TV hot-shots — the young cop or fireman, say — whose budding abilities lead them to think they know best. Rather, the kids here don’t have any real-life skills: They just think they know better because they understand social media.

McHale, the “Community” veteran, is enjoyable. The jokes aren’t bad, and it’s fun having Fry as the out-of-touch editor. Based on the first episode, though, the show is hit and miss. The premise is stretched every which way, but somehow “Indoors” seem a bit claustrophobic.

PHOTO BY CLIFF LIPSON — CBS BROADCASTING INC. “The Great Indoors” stars Joel McHale (second from right) in a comedy about a renowned adventure reporter for an outdoor magazine who must adapt to the times when he becomes the desk-bound boss to a group of millennials (far left to right, Christine...