{"id":517107,"date":"2026-03-06T01:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T01:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/517107\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T01:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T01:22:16","slug":"steve-carells-hbo-series-is-charming-save-one-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/517107\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Carell’s HBO Series Is Charming\u2014Save One Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a half-hour comedy that\u2019s mainly going for laughs (what a concept!), there\u2019s a lot happening in \u201cRooster<\/a>.\u201d Ostensibly, the new HBO series<\/a> follows Greg Russo (Steve Carell<\/a>) on a trip to see his daughter, Katie (Charly Clive) after her husband, Archie (Phil Dunster), leaves her for a younger woman. As Katie unloads her heartache and confusion, Greg can\u2019t help but reflect on his own broken marriage; it\u2019s been five years, and he still hasn\u2019t recovered from losing Elizabeth (Connie Britton<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Then an unexpected job opportunity emerges. It would move him closer to Katie during her time of need and give Greg a mulligan on his post-divorce reinvention. He could start over in a new town, with a new gig, and maybe even make some new friends. Perhaps the position is providence: bringing father and daughter together at just the right moment, so they can help each other regain their footing.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a> \"LONDON,<\/a> <\/p>\n

That, however, isn\u2019t all \u201cRooster\u201d is\u00a0\u2014\u00a0far from it. Did I mention Katie works as an art history professor at Ludlow College, a (fictional) liberal arts school in New England, which is the same place Archie works with his young new partner Sunny (Lauren Tsai)? (It also happens to be Elizabeth\u2019s alma mater, and she its \u201cmost celebrated alum.\u201d) Greg never went to college, so you can see where this is headed: He\u2019s going back to school! There will be keggers, hook-ups, late nights and early mornings, all without shading Greg as a sad old man trying to turn back time. Not this guy! Not Greg! He\u2019s doing this for his kid!<\/p>\n

If the premise sounds a bit broad for HBO<\/a>, it should. While the pending Paramount acquisition<\/a> has churned out plenty of funny hits in its storied history \u2014 \u201cThe Chair Company,\u201d<\/a> of all shows, became HBO\u2019s most-watched comedy debut<\/a> in five years \u2014\u00a0its titles tend to have sharper edges, headier ambitions, or offbeat vibes (like, you know, \u201cThe Chair Company\u201d<\/a>).<\/p>\n

As a warm, simple, and familiar sitcom, \u201cRooster\u201d stands out on HBO by fitting in with the rest of TV<\/a>, particularly its creators\u2019 former work. Co-showrunners Bill Lawrence<\/a> and Matt Tarses started out in network sitcoms, with the former ascending to TV royalty in the genre. Lawrence is responsible for \u201cSpin City,\u201d \u201cScrubs,\u201d and \u201cCougar Town,\u201d and he made the transition to streaming look easy with the mega hit \u201cTed Lasso,\u201d<\/a> as well as two additional Apple comedies, \u201cShrinking\u201d<\/a> and \u201cBad Monkey.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Many of Lawrence\u2019s sitcoms deploy a hooky premise as pretense for a hangout comedy, and his early work focused on skilled professionals whose personal lives were in the toilet. In \u201cSpin City,\u201d Mike (Michael J. Fox) is too busy running New York (the hook) to spend time with family and friends (the hangout). In \u201cScrubs,\u201d<\/a> J.D. (Zach Braff) is too overwhelmed with doctoring duties to maintain relationships outside the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cCougar Town\u201d arrived mid-pivot \u2014 after \u201cScrubs\u201d and before \u201cTed Lasso\u201d \u2014 as Lawrence shifted from stories of young workers looking for love to stories about proven professionals trying to shake things up. Ted Lasso<\/a> (Jason Sudeikis) is a beloved college football coach who becomes a beloved British soccer coach. Jimmy Laird (Jason Segel) is a reliable therapist who seizes on a radical new approach to helping patients. Andrew Yancy (Vince Vaughn) is a detective who starts over as a private eye.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of \u201cShrinking\u201d and \u201cScrubs\u201d in \u201cRooster\u201d \u2014 enough to unofficially form Lawrence\u2019s Sad Dad trilogy. The first six episodes feel overstuffed (with plot, characters, and jokes),\u00a0but a lot of it works. The premiere is rock solid, without a wasted word and showing a strong grip on its tone, and the cast is exceptional, led by Carell, Danielle Deadwyler, Phil Dunster, and Annie Mumolo. What doesn\u2019t work, for the most part, can be chalked up to the trial and error process typical for network comedies, which rely on regular fine-tuning to find their best self. If the audience is laughing while those adjustments are being made, you\u2019re good\u00a0\u2014 no harm, no foul.<\/p>\n

Still, for all the funny moments and exuded kindness (another modern Lawrence trademark), as \u201cRooster\u201d moves past its set-up and into its ongoing story, it keeps tripping over itself. Greg is an author. He\u2019s done well for himself writing beach reads where \u201cthe characters that you like have sex, and the ones you don\u2019t get shot in the face.\u201d His novels allow him to live vicariously through his recurring hero, Rooster: a buff, beachside detective who\u2019s as suave and smart as Greg is awkward and unassuming.<\/p>\n

\"CharlyCharly Clive, Connie Britton, and Steve Carell<\/a> in \u2018Rooster\u2019Courtesy of Katrina Marcinowski\/ HBO<\/p>\n

But \u201cRooster\u201d insists on illustrating Greg\u2019s lack of social (and physical) graces by turning him into a shield for canceled men. For every apparent impropriety, there\u2019s a reasonable explanation. When Greg gets drunk and high with an underage undergrad, it\u2019s OK, because he\u2019s trying to help a lonely kid make friends. When a student claims his books are misogynistic, it\u2019s OK, because she\u2019s overreacting. And in the most ludicrous, straight-out-of-a-\u201990s-sitcom example<\/a>, when Greg trips and breaks his fall by grabbing a woman\u2019s breasts, it\u2019s OK because what else could have done? Even the so-called victim says it was an accident, so no, there\u2019s nothing to see here, let\u2019s move on.<\/p>\n

Except it\u2019s hard to move on when \u201cRooster\u201d keeps circling back. Greg getting sent to the disciplinary board becomes a recurring bit, no more serious than whenever J.D. visits the hospital\u2019s attorney<\/a> or Jimmy gets chastised by his boss<\/a>. Cancel culture isn\u2019t what the show is about, but it\u2019s such a prominent punchline that it keeps getting in the way of the show itself. The only serious subject matter \u201cRooster\u201d cares about relates to its characters\u2019 emotional journeys \u2014 Greg\u2019s feelings of inadequacy are fresh, stirring material, and Carell lends them incredible poignancy in the brief glimpses they\u2019re given \u2014 and the humor inspired by Greg\u2019s misconstrued behavior is incongruous with what\u2019s otherwise a light, heartwarming comedy. <\/p>\n

Enjoying Carell, one of the most affable actors in existence, shouldn\u2019t be this hard (as a Matt Lauer surrogate on \u201cThe Morning Show,\u201d sure, but not when he\u2019s the audience proxy living out a middle-aged guy\u2019s \u201cback to college\u201d fantasy). After all, the series largely avoids other topical issues of modern campus life, from freedom of speech restrictions to administrators kowtowing to autocracies. So why does \u201cRooster\u201d need to keep bringing up the threat of cancellation, especially after the show goes so far out of its way to avoid labeling Greg as a certified Bad Man\u2122\ufe0f? He isn\u2019t even the professor who sleep with a student; his son-in-law did!<\/p>\n

Perhaps the first season\u2019s misguided focus is just one more wrinkle waiting to be ironed out \u2014 an attempt to fit HBO\u2019s edgy, contemporary brand from a creative team best suited for broad comedy. After all, even when you\u2019re overtly aware of its hang-ups, \u201cRooster\u201d is easy to fall for. The jokes are plentiful, the campus setting is aptly cozy, and the pacing proves as quick as it is assured. You can tell everyone involved has done this before, at the highest levels, including Lawrence\u2019s returning favorites John C. McGinley (\u201cScrubs\u201d), Alan Ruck (\u201cSpin City\u201d), and Connie Britton (\u201cSpin City\u201d). Deadwyler, a legitimate star, gets stuck reassuring everyone that this seemingly offensive white dude is actually OK, but she\u2019s still an additive comedic presence, whether it\u2019s her dialed-in reactions or catchy enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

Carell, meanwhile, is in his element and thriving. Greg is far more aware of his social blunders than Michael Scott was, but their shared actor brings the same late-\u201cOffice\u201d innocence to his latest embarrassing lead. It\u2019s hard to sell lines so mortifying no normal person would think them, let alone speak them aloud, but Carell stammers through each one with just enough blamelessness that you believe Greg when he says, \u201cI don\u2019t know why I do so many of the things I do.\u201d Carell is savvy enough to root each preposterous statement or action in something true to his character.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a performance worth reveling in. Here\u2019s hoping \u201cRooster\u201d makes it easier to do just that in Season 2.<\/p>\n

Grade: B-<\/p>\n

\u201cRooster\u201d premieres Sunday, March 8 at 10 p.m. ET on HBO. New episodes will be released weekly through the finale on May 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a half-hour comedy that\u2019s mainly going for laughs (what a concept!), there\u2019s a lot happening in \u201cRooster.\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[200001,49,48,75,5862,209,201323,58075,348],"class_list":{"0":"post-517107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-bill-lawrence","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-hbo","13":"tag-reviews","14":"tag-rooster","15":"tag-steve-carell","16":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517107","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=517107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}