(courtesy IMP Awards)
While we all want a good laugh from a sitcom – it’s kind of the point right and any sitcom that fails to deliver decent amounts of comedy has no business being labelled as such – what we also want is some sort of connection with the characters.
Sure, we want some escapist humour to lift the weight off the world off our shoulders and made the dead weight on our chest feel a little lighter, even if only for a moment, but we also want to feel that the people in the midst of the situational comedy are worthy of the laughs being generated in their name.
Connection with characters matters whatever the genre, and the good news is that Running Point – just renewed for a second series, barely after a week after its debut which speaks to its popularity on Netflix – nails this important sitcom aspect with a warmhearted vigour that more than matches the humour with which it is winningly twinned.
Set at a fictional NBA team, the Los Angeles Waves – modelled on the Los Angeles Lakers whose controlling owner and president is co-executive producing the series with Mindy Kaling – Running Point centres on the often quirkily funny but always heartfelt machinations of the family that owes the stories basketball franchise, the Gordons.
With the misogynistic, brutally and womanising father dead and gone as the series opens, the running of the club falls to his children, headed by Cam Gordon (Justin Theroux) who aims to keep delivering on the immense success of the team to date.
But then circumstances conspire to take him out of the picture – drug and alcohol dependencies and a very public car crash send him to rehab very early in episode 1 – and he nominates his younger sister, Isla (Kate Hudson) to take over as president, a decision which does not well with Isla’s siblings, younger brothers Ness (Scott MacArthur), the Waves’ general manager and CFO Alexander “Sandy” (Drew Tarver), who think they should’ve got the gig.
Thankfully all out familial warfare does not result – if it had, we’ve had Succession 2 on our hands which, while no doubt gripping drama, would not have delivered much in the way of laughs – and while there is friction and some rather underhanded chats with the board by the two brothers, ultimately, disfunction aside, the Gordons are as united as a super rich family of competitive siblings can be.
To add even more fuel to the comedic fire, a 19-year-old half-brother, Jackie Moreno (Fabrizio Guido) born to one of the dead father’s lovers emerges and is folded into the family, his innocence and lack of super rich guile acting as a nice counterpoint to characters, who while miraculously decent people, have only ever known immense wealth and privilege and the lack of connection to a grounded life that Jackie knows all too well.
To reveal too much would be a freethrow too far into spoiler territory, but suffice to say, the writers of Running Point do a superb job of giving us insight into the high stakes world of pro basketball while giving the characters, both the Gordons and those who work for them such as Isla’s BFF Ali Lee (Brenda Song), coach Jay Brown (Jay Ellis) and players Travis Bugg (Chet Hanks) and Marcus Winfield (Toby Sandeman), more than enough room in which to give us a look at their off-court lives.
It’s a nice mix, and wile it doesn’t possess the cosy warmth and goodhearted cuteness of the legendary Ted Lasso, Running Point does an suitably affecting and laugh inducing job of delivering escapist sitcom bliss, the kind that feels like spending time with family.
It’s a well-wrought brew, given punch by actors who know what they are doing with some tightly written lines, a storyline that goes serious when it needs to nand is comfortable staying there even if it forgoes or delays some laughs in the meantime, and a situation that is way above anything most of us will experience which is leavened out and humanised by characters like Jackie and some of the players who might know wealth and fame now, but who didn’t always.
In each and every one of the first season’s ten episodes, which suitably end on a not entirely unexpected but still gutwrenchingly cliffhanger, there is a heady mix of bright and sometimes goofy humour, and some very serious ruminative moments that together combine into a sitcom with some emitional heft.
It isn’t perhaps as top shelf as old sitcoms like Frasier or newer ones like Loot (and it certainly doesn’t go as offbeat silly as Maya Rudolph’s starring vehicle regularly and brilliantly does), but that’s more of a “yet” deal than a “never” one because Running Point has all the ingredients to deliver a classic grade A sitcom, the kind that is worth watching again and again because it’s that damn good.
In some ways, its aspirant top shelf status shouldn’t come as a surprise since Kaling has a track record of delivering thoughtful shows that are as emotional weighty as they are laugh out loud, but each and every show from even the most successful showrunners isn’t a sure thing until it’s out in the real world.
Thankfully Kaling’s record remains intact, and while we are laughing at the sometimes idiotic actions of people who should know better, we are being treated to comedy that is intelligent, character-driven and grounded in the kind of seriousness that comes with life.
It’s a winning combination and it means that like most higher quality sitcoms, Running Point stays with you and you muse long after the jokes have even impressively well delivered at some how much all that kidding around matters and how much these characters mean to you.
Rich with nuanced comedy and an eye for the foibles of people, rich and not so much, Running Point is an escapist delight that doesn’t life the weight of the world from you as any good sitcom should while reminding you that even in the funniest of situations, there is a serious element, reflecting the silly and serious yin and yang of life, and that programs like this would best when they embrace both sides of the existential coin and let their characters live and breathe and make funny in the space that creates.
Running Point streams on Netflix.