Steve Carell’s Rooster is one you’ll either absolutely love or hate

📺 Veteran comedy star and The Office icon Steve Carell does what he does best in Rooster — the latest comedy-drama from Bill Lawrence, the American director behind Ted Lasso and Scrubs — play the fool. This time, however, there’s plenty more nuance to his on-screen counterpart. Greg Russo (Carell) is a middle-aged novelist with little else going on for him — but that changes fast.

The plot: When Greg is invited to give a talk on his novels — the main character of which is called Rooster — at the college where his daughter Katie (Charly Clive) works as an art professor, he finds himself smack in the middle of a domestic dispute between Katie and her cheating husband Archie (Phil Dunster). Greg attempts some diplomacy, but Katie has other plans in mind — ones that eventually force her father to take a job as a writer-in-residence at the college so she could keep her job after getting in trouble. Cue the circus.

What we liked: Carell does a stellar job of portraying a socially-awkward, sometimes-cool, and always-embarrassing father. The dialogue, when it lands, does so with flying colors. The rest of the cast delivers commendable performances, and some characters, by simply existing with their ludicrous ways, had us hooked.

What we didn’t like: When the dialogue didn’t land, it crashed, burned, and made us cringe… hard. Some jokes — to us, at least — felt overdone, and certain moments had us reaching for our remote to fast-forward through the awkwardness of it all — come to think of it, maybe that just means the writers knew what they were doing.

The verdict: Rooster is the kind of show that’s a hit or miss — depending on what kind of humor lands with you. The first couple of episodes prove a little slow, but the show does pick up the pace, especially if you click with the comedy. If you’re looking for a low-stakes watch to put on while you’re scrolling through your phone, we’d say Rooster fits that bill pretty well. However, if you’re on the hunt for a laugh-out-loud comedy that’ll have you glued to your screen, we’d say sit this one out.

WHERE TO WATCH- You can stream Rooster on OSN+, with episodes dropping weekly. Watch the trailer on YouTube (watch, runtime: 2:17).