Reboot – Season One Review

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before – a classic 80s/early 90s sitcom has struck a chord with the ascending adults of a young generation (maybe they recall it fondly from their childhood, maybe they found it again on streaming, maybe they are just wondering what ever happened that that actor . . .) and a streaming site, realizing there’s money to be had – and views to be found – greenlights a reboot with the same cast.* That is, at the most basic level, the premise of the new Hulu series Reboot, which sees a thirtysomething up and coming writer reboot the fictional Step Right Up, an early 2000s sitcom that was a solid if not spectacular hit, but which has a particular personal meaning for the writer – and the potential for a stealth hit for the streaming service.

*If you’ve been living under a rock and have missed the plethora of rebooted series over the last decade or so, there’s a gag early in the Reboot pilot that has a Hulu (naturally the streamer poised to handle the reboot) researcher list off the shockingly large number of shows that have been rebooted in some fashion of late. It’s both stunning and sad – some I even had forgotten about.

The first two episodes of the series are very meta in a not all that funny way – from the rebooted series being launched by Hulu (which allows Hulu to direct some toothless ribbing at itself that feels a bit too much like the network taking a victory lap before the race has been run) to the various original cast members of the sitcom having fallen into ruts that, while common for those who have left a successful sitcom, don’t feel all that interesting to explore. But once you get beyond the first episode and a half – and the show dispenses with the “twist” that feels contrived at first but pays great dividends later in the season – Reboot turns out to be a solid, funny, interesting comedy. Which, lets face it, isn’t an easy task to accomplish, particularly when a series has as many mouths to feed as this one.

It helps that the series is full of comedy veterans, both in front of and behind the camera. The series was created by Steven Levitan (Just Shoot Me, Modern Family), a man who knows a thing or two about both workplace comedies (which Reboot is) and the family sitcom (which Step Right Up is – and we do get to see various scenes from the show within a show, so they also need to be sharp enough to pass muster). As for the cast, well, it’s a hell of a cast. Keegan-Michael Key, Johnny Knoxville, Judy Greer, and Calum Worthy are the sitcom cast (the original premise of the show: Key’s character marries Greer’s, and her ex-husband Knoxville moves in to help raise Worthy’s precocious kid character – although, naturally, things shift a bit with the reboot), all pros and all funny, although Knoxville is able to add a depth to his character of Clay Barber, recovering addict trying not to screw things up a second time, that I didn’t expect to see from an actor best known for Jackass. The thirtysomething writer rebooting the series is played by Rachel Bloom, best known for co-creating and starring in her own dark musical comedy series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Bloom is great playing the straight man in most situations, acclimating herself well to the comedy of the series and not being afraid to look silly when the scene calls for it. Rounding out the cast is Paul Reiser, a television comedy veteran of Mad About You (although most younger viewers likely know him best for his recent turn on Stranger Things), playing the sitcom’s original showrunner who, it turns out, still owns the rights to the series and gets to come back and potentially throw a wrench in this new, modern reboot.

As with most series about the entertainment business, the most interesting stuff comes from watching the characters interact off set – although the writers’ room scenes where the sitcom is crafted do start working well late in the season when they become more about the characters and less about the mechanics of sitcom creation. The most impressive thing about Reboot is how much depth Levitan and his writing staff are able to imbue the various characters with as the season rolls out. Yes, this means Reboot isn’t always a laugh a minute series – although it is funny – but the more dramatic, character driven moments feel earned. And the cast of comedy stalwarts is more than able to deliver on the more serious moments. Key and Greer’s characters have a will-they-or-won’t-they arc that starts out with the audience desperately hoping they won’t hook up (the characters previously had a tempestuous relationship during the course of the original sitcom), but once the season plays out, you can see how they might – in the right circumstances – complement each other now rather than destroy one another. And Bloom’s Hannah becomes a fully realized, three-dimensional character late in the season once the story stops asking her to keep pushing back at Reiser’s Gordon at every turn and just learn to work with him, despite their very understandable differences. The same can be said for Gordon – once the writing decides to let him become more than the immovable object throwing a wrench in things, an interesting, complex character begins to emerge.

Unlike some of Levitan’s other work, Reboot rarely goes for the easy laugh at the expense of its characters. Instead, the low-hanging comedy fruit gets picked only as a precursor to something else – an emotional revelation, a key step in a character’s realization, or a lead-in to a better, more complicated joke. When you’re working with a cast this strong and competent, you can trust that they will manage to get the nuances of the writing and learn to make it work for them. And that’s what we have here – a cast that is able to take their roles, take the writing, and hit it out of the park. I honestly wasn’t sure I would like Reboot – I haven’t loved Levitan’s work in the past – but by the end of the eight episode season, I was fully invested and excited to see just what was coming up in season two.

Reboot premieres on Hulu on September 20. All eight episodes of the first season were provided for review.