[9][10][11] The program features a diverse array of human-interest stories, celebrity guests, lifestyle segments, and field pieces.

Barrymore had previously circled a talk show deal with Warner Bros.' Telepictures in 2016,[17] but a pilot never came to fruition, in part because of a lukewarm response from prospective station groups at the time.

"[20] This particular series included Barrymore's conversations with Gayle King, Andy Cohen, Jimmy Fallon, Whoopi Goldberg, and Sean Evans.

Barrymore also launched "Drew's Movie Nite", in which she would invite fans to join her in a live Twitter watch party.

The third edition of "Drew's Movie Nite", this time aired on CBS on October 25, 2020, and was the 1996 film Scream[23] starring Barrymore.

The launch took place with a small crew at the CBS Broadcast Center in Midtown Manhattan, with pandemic-related rules and precautions.

[32] The show also announced that come its second season, it would be produced with a full-capacity audience[33] in attendance[34] at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York.

[45] The debut episode featured guest appearances by Barrymore's former co-stars Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu, and Adam Sandler.

The CBS Television Stations group was on board to anchor the launch of The Drew Barrymore Show, including on KCBS-TV in Los Angeles and WCBS-TV in New York City.

With the impassioned face of a celebrity raising funds on a telethon, Barrymore said emphatically that, 'I'm also someone who is learning all the time, and I'm so excited to figure out this thing called life with you!'

The combination has formed some of the most hypnotically, authentically strange TV the internet has had a chance to dine out on in a while, as Barrymore jumps between recreating famous movies she's made with her buddies, to monologuing, for minutes at a time, about her love of removing stains from T-shirts."

Tracy Moore of Vanity Fair said[62] that it is remarkable that "something so offbeat is happening on daytime at all" of the "low-key insanity" of The Drew Barrymore Show.

She is, it seems, genuinely in awe of everyone and everything, a self-described 'human scrapbook of news,' a 'pop culture junkie,' a lover of people and stain removal."

Jessica Toomer of Uproxx proclaimed that 2020 was the year Drew Barrymore blew up the daytime talk show machine.

The kind of mind-numbing social experiment that rivals the frenzied delirium of a Safdie Brothers crime saga but interjects just enough PBS-after-school-special cheer to quiet the shrieking happening inside your brain as you watch.

But like a 1994-era Chloë Sevigny, it's the kind of "It Girl" of the talk show universe that you just can't quite define, but know you should worship anyway."

[64]Critical consensus was more positive after the 2022 format change, with one reviewer calling the show a "viral sensation," elaborating that "even if you are not interested in celebrities, there is a radical naivety to Barrymore ... that is joyful, unreflective and fun to watch.