Within a week of Rooster’s launch in the US, this tender college campus series became HBO’s most watched new comedy in a decade. In many ways, it was a predictable turn of events. It was created by the hit machine that is producer Bill Lawrence, the man responsible for Scrubs, Shrinking and Ted Lasso. Rooster stars the perennially popular Steve Carell as Greg Russo, a heartwarmingly decent dad who takes a teaching job at the fictional Ludlow College in order to be closer to his adult daughter Katie (Charly Clive).
Early in its 10-episode run, the series established Greg as a fish out of water at a liberal arts college. He is the author of a bestselling series of action novels centring on Rooster, an attractive and charming private investigator. Rooster is an exercise in wish fulfilment — in reality, 57-year-old Greg is perpetually baffled by the modern age. “How hard is it for you to stop offending people?” asks his new colleague Dylan, a professor of poetry (Danielle Deadwyler, who is woefully underused). The answer, it seems, is very hard. He almost gets arrested for accidentally buying underage students alcohol. He is hauled in front of several panels to address his inappropriate behaviour. None of what he does is intentionally criminal, or intentionally inappropriate, because Greg is a bona fide good guy. It is all just silly enough for us to laugh at his harmless mishaps.
Though it is washed in the muted pallor of an indie movie, this is a big, generous, unsubtle crowdpleaser. Greg is still nursing the wounds of his divorce from Katie’s mother Elizabeth (Connie Britton). Katie, meanwhile, is reeling from a break-up with her own husband Archie (Ted Lasso’s Phil Dunster), who cheated on her with now-pregnant grad student Sunny (Lauren Tsai). Greg arrives on campus to heal his daughter, but over the course of this likeable season, he begins, of course, to heal himself.
There are two episodes remaining, and it ambles towards a season finale with suitably low stakes. Katie is beginning to question her parents’ high level of involvement in her life at Ludlow, as well as finally addressing her on-off relationship with the risible Archie. Greg is contemplating the end of his time at the university, while wondering if his planned new life in Florida really is the life for him. It trails enough breadcrumbs to tee up season two, for which it has already, inevitably, been renewed.
Rooster is an oddly frictionless show, a softball comedy-drama that settles for the easiest way through. It is resolutely, pointedly old-fashioned. But in that timelessness, it finds a certain comfort. This is cosy and warm comedy, and while it is hard to love, is equally hard to resist.
★★★☆☆
On Sky One/Now on Mondays at 10pm in the UK and on HBO Max in the US
