{"id":516665,"date":"2026-03-05T20:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T20:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/516665\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T20:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T20:41:08","slug":"steve-carell-hbo-comedy-is-a-slog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/516665\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Carell HBO Comedy Is a Slog"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFrom \u201cScrubs\u201d creator Bill Lawrence and co-creator Matt Tarses, HBO<\/a>\u2019s newest comedy series, \u201cRooster<\/a>,\u201d follows Greg Russo (Steve Carell<\/a>), a best-selling author known for his trashy beach reads. Despite his professional success, he\u2019s still reeling from the end of his marriage due to infidelity. Greg decides to shake off the monotony of his life by taking a position as Writer in Residence at the prestigious (fictional) Ludlow College. While Greg is reluctant to take on the role, he\u2019s thrilled to be closer to his adult daughter, Katie (Charly Clive<\/a>), Ludlow\u2019s art history professor, who is struggling amid the demise of her own marriage. \u201cRooster\u201d should be a witty examination of a father\/daughter bond. Regrettably, it dissolves into an uninspired narrative riddled with stale jokes and plot points from a different era. Basically, we\u2019ve already seen several iterations of \u201cRooster\u201d before, like \u201cFather of the Bride,\u201d \u201cFatherhood\u201d and even themes from Carell\u2019s most recent work, \u201cThe Four Seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRooster\u201d opens somewhere in the Northeast at Ludlow, where Greg has been asked to speak to Professor Dylan Shepard\u2019s (Danielle Deadwyler<\/a>) class about his latest book. Greg\u2019s true motive in agreeing to Dylan\u2019s invitation is to check on Katie who is struggling after her husband, Archie (Phil Dunster), a Russian historian, left her for a graduate student named Sunny (Lauren Tsai). Seeing his only child out of sorts disturbs Greg, so when eclectic Ludlow President Walter Mann (John C. McGinley), offers him a semester-long position at the university, he reluctantly accepts.<\/p>\n

\n\tAcross the 10-episode first season (critics received six for review), Greg embarks on the college experience he never had the chance to partake in during his youth. He bonds with Dylan, explores a new romantic relationship and tries to be there for Katie without smothering her. Instead of playing it safe, Greg attempts to emulate his book character, Rooster, by stepping out of his shell and exploring all that life at Ludlow has to offer, with mixed results.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnfortunately, \u201cRooster\u201d\u00a0 is full of predictable characters and circumstances, adding up to a lackluster narrative. The back-and-forth between Archie and Katie is exhausting, and the politics of academia, including\u00a0budget changes\u00a0and the revolving door of faculty and staff, are rather dull. Things take a ridiculous turn due to some of the gags involving Greg and his students. In one sequence, Greg, referencing \u201cMoby Dick,\u201d calls a young woman a \u201cwhite whale,\u201d and he\u2019s called into the dean\u2019s office, accused of body-shaming. Regrettably, the series fully tumbles downhill in Episode 3. Greg trips in the middle of class and uses another student\u2019s breasts to break his fall. Frat boy humor certainly has its place in the ecosystem of comedy, especially if it\u2019s done well. It\u2019s a type of entetainment that Carell has succeded in demonstrating since his big break on \u201cThe Office\u201d two decades ago. Still, the quips here feel both recycled and indecorous, as if misogyny and the #MeToo Movement are just ideas to laugh at.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRooster\u201d is especially disappointing because there is much to be said about the relationships between fathers and adult daughters, but that dynamic is barely explored here. Over the course of the season, it\u2019s made plain that Greg is the more sensitive parent, while his ex-wife Elizabeth (Connie Britton) takes on the less emotional or traditional \u201cdad\u201d role with Katie. The audience gets glimmers of Katie and Greg\u2019s relationship, but the show is bogged down by dull characters like the policeman who seems to have it out for Greg, and even by its focus on Archie\u2019s point of view, which is just a depiction of narcissism and a formulaic pseudo-midlife crisis.<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite its star power and creator Lawrence\u2019s previous work on series like \u201cTed Lasso,\u201d \u201cShrinking,\u201d and \u201cCougar Town,\u201d \u201cRooster\u201d is a dull regurgitation of previously explored themes and figures Carell has portrayed before. Though the actors do their best to expand the material given to them, when it\u2019s all said and done, the show simply doesn\u2019t crow.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRooster\u201d premieres March 8 on HBO, with new episodes dropping weekly on Sundays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From \u201cScrubs\u201d creator Bill Lawrence and co-creator Matt Tarses, HBO\u2019s newest comedy series, \u201cRooster,\u201d follows Greg Russo (Steve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,125696,106000,75,5862,201323,58075],"class_list":{"0":"post-516665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-charly-clive","11":"tag-danielle-deadwyler","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-hbo","14":"tag-rooster","15":"tag-steve-carell"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}