In one word: cheap.

It is either not heavy enough on the story, or on the comedy, but they should have chosen. In the beginning it looks like it will mostly be a comedy, in the end the episodes are more plot driven.
With a little more seriousness the plot could have worked as a drama (or semi drama as the base idea is a little stupid). But it is pushed in fast forward and is mostly stupid. Which could have worked for a pure comedy show, but too bad, when there is plot, the jokes are gone. When it goes for drama it fails miserably, the idea might be there but the delivery is so weak.

It has clearly been set up for several seasons, introducing plotlines that are barely touched. Too bad they would have been needed to give a little more substance.

Steve Carell is ok, his character is basically The Office's Michael Scott. Not exactly. Scott is a stupid narcissistic asshole that can't bear not to be the center of attention. Naird is a nice moral guy that ends up in a position that everybody (including himself) find ridicule but where he's also way over his head and doesn't want to show it. Motivations are not the same. But on the outside ? They basically react the same way 95% of the time. It's ok on the comedy part, it's pretty bland on the drama part.

Best point of the show: John Malkovich is just fucking amazing. Like, really. Almost every single one of his lines is gold. The duo with Carell works well, but seriously, Malkovich carries the whole thing.
This show would have been much better if centered on Mallory POV instead of Naird.
This show would have been much better if useless background characters were dropped for more Malkovich.

Lisa Kudrow as Naird's wife is pretty good, and her character has a lot of unexploited potential (to save it for future season I suppose, bad call). Her life in prison would have probably been much more interesting than most of the rest.

The daughter is totally horribly useless without any hope. I'm not sure I've ever seen any character anywhere that is such a waste of screen time. She does not bring a single good thing to the whole season. Her plotlines, if it can even be called that, are so stupid or uninteresting, it's hard to watch.

Tony, the media guy is incredibly annoying. It's irritating almost every time you see him. That can be a good thing for a character, but only if he's irritating to other characters, not to the audience.

Ali, the helicopter pilot turned astronaut has some ok scenes. Seem kinda useless in the first episode, but she's actually git more personality than most and should have been used more (and not a stupid pseudo love story ffs).

The rest are forgettable.

An interesting thing is that POTUS is never seen, and that's strange and normal at the same time. At any other time, having most of the characters commenting around the president's stupidity would not have been possible. If you got an unseen president, he just represents the job and is a serious, official figure. If you want to show flaws, you must show him, and have the character be extra goofy so that the audience understands it's a parody. But these days, it's not needed, people know who is president, and are probably wondering whether this happened for real or not. What a time to be alive. Note that other real political figures are very explicitly represented, to the point that they are more imitation than parody.

It could be a good show if it focused more on one aspect as it clearly is not able to juggle the mix of comedy, drama and plot. Also more Malkovich!