The show I've been watching is another sitcom. There's a surprise.
I really like sitcoms. I grew up with them. They were a staple of my viewing - of everyone's viewing - from when I was a child, through my teenage years until I was well into my thirties. More so even than soap operas. Certainly more than serious drama.
Even now, sitcoms remain an important part of almost any programmer's schedule, whether it's a broadcast network or a streaming platform. And there's persistent cultural interest in the history of the genre. There are documentaries and movies and stage plays based on sitcoms from the fifties through to the nineties. I've seen or heard quite a few.
There are novels, too. I just finished reading one centered on a fictional sixties sitcom. It felt like it was based on a specific show, although I don't think it was any I've seen. I'd tell you what the book's called and who wrote it but I read it in proof and it's not out until next year so I'm not supposed to review it or quote from it. I enjoyed it, though, I'll say that much.
It's not surprising that, even with my longstanding interest in the genre, I didn't really recognize whatever specific show was being referenced. We didn't get a lot of the really big U.S. shows over here when I was growing up. I don't think we got Leave It To Beaver or The Honeymooners or Gilligan's Island, for example, and even if we had it would most likely have been late, incomplete and out of order.
The novel mentions a number of real sixties sitcoms that we did get, though, and the author clearly doesn't think much of many them. The classics, like the eternal Lucy, get due reverence but there's little respect shown for all those fanciful shows with supernatural or surreal elements, like The Munsters, My Favorite Martian or I Dream of Genie, most of which made it over here and all of which I watched every chance I got.
None of those get a good word in the novel but the author and the characters all seem to save their greatest disdain for what was one of my favorite shows as a child, The Beverley Hillbillies. I can't pretend that's unfair. It is not, I have to say, a show that's aged well. I tried to watch a couple of episodes on YouTube a decade or so back and it was heavy going.
A lot of sitcoms from the fifties and sixties have lasted a lot better. I watched the entirety of The Dick Van Dyke Show on YouTube a few years ago. It stands up very well. The Addams Family remains a favorite with many, sixty years after it was first broadcast. I have the box set of the entire run of Sgt. Bilko next to me right now and I could pull out a disc at random and watch any episode and it would still be sharp, witty and very funny.
So, anyway, I like sitcoms. I've watched a lot, read about some and I know a reasonable amount about the history. There certainly aren't as many around as there used to be but I'd say there are still plenty of good ones being made. They're not the linchpins of the schedules the way they once were but they're still culturally and commercially significant, especially when they feature a well-known actor in the central role.
At which point, I imagine, someone reading this is going to guess I'm about to review the second season if the Ted Danson vehicle, Man on the Inside. I am not. I'm watching it but I'm only up to Episode 4. You'll have to wait for my thoughts on that one.
The show I've just finished watching is Running Point. Terrible title. I haven't been able to remember it even for twenty-four hours between episodes on my one-a-day schedule. I just had to look it up for this post. I can't remember the last time I watched a whole season of a show and couldn't bring the name of it to mind by the end.
In case you haven't heard of it, Running Point is a basketball comedy airing on Netflix and starring Kate Hudson. I can give you the elevator pitch in a sentence: Ted Lasso meets Arrested Development.
Better do the SPOILER WARNING here, I guess.
The longer version? Kate Hudson plays Isla Gordon, youngest of the four Gordon siblings and the only girl. The very wealthy Gordon family own the L.A. Waves basketball team, of which eldest brother Cam has been President since their father died. The team employs all four of the Gordon kids in one capacity or another, with Isla shunted off to the sidelines as the Charity organizer.
At the start of the first season (There's only been one season so far.) Cam, who has a crack and coke addiction, goes into rehab. His two brothers each expect to take over but Cam hands the controls over to Isla.
This sets up a Ted Lasso scenario, where a completely inappropriate person is given control of a major sports team. As with Ted, it turns out she's really good at it, even though at the start it looks like she'll be a laughing stock. And even more like Ted, it becomes obvious after a while that the person who gave her the job expects and wants her to fail.
The whole story arc is almost identical, with Isla making left-field choices that turn out to be inspired, bringing the fractious team together by sheer force of personality, winning over grumpy and self-obsessed players and cynical journalists alike with her genuine enthusiasm and basically shining like a feisty ray of sunlight over everything and everyone until the team starts acting like a real team and winning matches again.
Seriously, you could probably project the two storylines simultaneously onto a screen and have them overlap almost perfectly.
As for the Arrested Development comparison, that's a bit of a looser fit. There are plenty of dysfunctional families in sitcomland, after all. Schitt's Creek might be almost as good a match.
Still, the nature of the Gordon's dysfunctionality reminded me quite strongly of Arrested Development, with the relationships between the siblings and their hangers-on occasionally edging towards the irreal if not the surreal. When the fourth, previously unknown, Gordon sibling turns up a couple of episodes in, and turns out to be a lovable, naive, adolescent, whose puppy-dog enthusiasm counter-points the narcissism and interior focus of the rest of the clan, the congruencies become hard to miss.
Okay then. So it's not exactly original. But is it any good?
Yes, it is. The sporting storyline works as well here as it it did in Ted Lasso. Kate Hudson is as appealing, relatable and amusing as Jason Sudeikis, the supporting cast is strong, especially the three brothers. (I particularly liked Scott MacArthur as middle brother Ness.) Most importantly for a sitcom, the script is consistently and reliably funny.
I was pleasantly surprised to find the basketball scenes, of which there aren't many, far more convincing than their equivalents in Ted Lasso. That may be because I have seen a lot of football matches on TV but very few basketball games.
Or because I have never been able to follow the action on a basketball court. It's too fast and frenzied. Or maybe they got mostly real basketball players to do the action shots. Whatever, it worked a lot better for me than the borderline embarrassing on-pitch antics in Ted Lasso.
The script is partly credited to Executive Producer Mindy Kaling, who co-wrote the first and last episode and wrote Episode 2 alone. It was seeing her name in the credits when Netflix offered the show up as a suggestion that got me to give it a try, although now I actually think about it, I'm not sure I've ever watched any of her other shows. That's the power of name recognition for you.
I'm happy I did, anyway. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole season.
It's very much a feel-good comedy (Again, like Ted Lasso.) and I can take any number of those, provided they also have a bit of bite, which this one certainly does. Kate Hudson is a very good comedienne, not just in her delivery of the numerous smart remarks and come-backs but in some very good physical comedy, too. The running gag where she doesn't see the extremely clean glass partition wall gets funnier every time she walks into it.
I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoyed Ted Lasso. It's "inspired by" not "ripped off". If the success of the pair of them leads to a spate of feel-good sports comedies, I won't be complaining.
For non-sports fans, it sits very snugly in the long tradition of both family and work-based sitcoms. If you like to see siblings and/or co-workers striking sparks off each other, this should suit very well.
The whole thing motors along for ten episodes, none of which felt like filler, before wrapping up relatively neatly. The exceptions are Isla's love life, which starts out simple and ends up very complicated indeed and the mystery of what the hell Cam might be up to.
That one goes unaddressed to the point where I was starting to think the writers had just forgotten about it altogether... until the very, very last scene, when suddenly there's not only a cliff to hang off but a bombshell to hang on to on the way down if you fall.
It's just as well there's a second season on the way.
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