Steve Carell stars in Ted Lasso creator’s new HBO Max comedy
Rooster ★★★★
Americans love a college campus as a TV backdrop, offering as it does various tropes: fish-out-of-water; workplace comedy; the politics around tenure; and the biggie, the professor-student relationship.
This new comedy from Ted Lasso’s Bill Lawrence and his Scrubs co-creator Matt Tarses has a bit of all of these tropes. The 10-part series stars Steve Carell as the fish out of water in what becomes a workplace comedy.
Carell is bestselling author Greg Russo, whose pulpy action novels feature a character called Rooster, who sports an open shirt and a six-pack on the book covers, and a passing resemblance to Russo himself. (Lawrence and Tarses based the character on high-concept Florida author Carl Hiaasen, inspired after they adapted Hiaasen’s Bad Monkey for the 2024 TV series).
When Russo’s college professor daughter Katie (British actor Charly Clive) splits from her husband, fellow professor Archie (Ted Lasso’s Phil Dunster), after discovering he’s been cheating on her with a grad student named Sunny (Lauren Tsai), Russo visits Katie on campus in an attempt to offer her some guidance. Even though Russo is still flailing after his marriage breakdown with Katie’s mother five years earlier.
Soon after arriving, Russo is cajoled into giving a guest lecture by Rooster fan and English department dean Walter (John C. McGinley in trademark form playing … John C. McGinley) to a class of horrified earnest students who, aside from one (the working-class outcast), haven’t heard of his books. Russo, too, is a little mortified; he knows his books aren’t exactly highbrow.
Katie, meanwhile, post pep-talk from Russo, is ready to try and save her marriage, when something that can’t be spoiled prompts her instead to resign from the college and burn Archie’s (campus-owned) house down – in her defence, she was only trying to destroy one of his beloved first edition books.
A deal is then brokered that will save Katie from an arson charge, and keep her on campus – if Russo agrees to become the college’s artist-in-residence.
If it sounds like a classic sitcom set-up, that’s because it is. Lawrence and Tarses are not trying to push any boundaries with Rooster, which falls somewhere between the wholesome comedy of Ted Lasso and the slightly darker-but-still-kind tone of Lawrence’s recent comedy-drama Shrinking.
While there are requisite comedy moments derived from Russo’s old-school author running into trouble for his lack of “wokeness” (misgendering people, offending a student who misunderstands his Moby Dick “white whale” comment and the like), the odd Michael Scott-like slapstick moment, and a classic night out with some students, the heart of the show is Russo and Katie’s father-daughter relationship.
Carell and Clive have a satisfying chemistry, and crucially, both have brilliant comic timing. Carell is in his element as the slightly awkward middle-aged man out of his comfort zone – like McGinley, he’s kinda playing Steve Carell – in the claustrophobic campus setting, and the rapid-fire jokes and a cracking ensemble cast (including Danielle Deadwyler, Connie Britton and Alan Ruck) elevate Rooster above some of its sitcom peers. If you miss The Office’s Michael Scott, Rooster offers a more pleasant version of him.
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