For almost four decades now, Bill Lawrence has been knocking out of the park delivering some of the best TV series on the box — from Spin City and Scrubs to Ted Lasso and Shrinking. And now, having explored the human experience on the pitch, in therapy, at Sacred Heart hospital, and in the mayoral office of NYC, Lawrence (alongside longtime collaborator Matt Tarses) is turning his observational eye to faculty matters with Rooster, an original HBO Max sit-com starring Steve Carell as an author whose complicated relationship with his professor daughter (Charly Clive) comes into sharper focus when he finds himself contributing at her college campus. Check out the trailer below;
A-ha, so that’s why it’s called Rooster! As you see in the trailer above, life gets real interesting real fast for Carell’s successful novelist Greg Russo when he heads down to daughter Katie’s college, ostensibly with the aim of saving her job after she (accidentally) burns down a faculty house and (not-so-accidentally) punches her fellow professor hubby (Phil Dunster) in the face for doing the dirty with a newly grad. Before he knows it, our man Greg’s helping out at seminars, schmoozing with the faculty, and channelling his inner Rooster (the charismatic protagonist of his best-selling books) as he gets down with the cool kids on campus. By the looks of things it’s a warm, occasionally dramatic comedy offering a needling insight into the personal — and professional — lives of a group of folk all just trying to muddle through and do their best. So, y’know, a Bill Lawrence show!
Boasting a stacked ensemble (Danielle Deadwyler! John C. McGinley! Alan Ruck! Connie Britton!), a strong central hook, and the promise of Carell returning to his longform TV comedy roots, we’re hopeful Rooster will cock-a-doodle-doo nicely when it hits HBO Max stateside on 8 March (and HBO Max UK-side presumably when the streamer launches here at the end of the same month.)
