I’ve been a fan of Steven Levitan’s TV shows for years without really being aware of it. I devoured episodes Just Shoot Me as a kid, went out of my way to watch Stark Raving Mad during its brief tenure, and slowly wended my way around to an appreciation of Modern Family after writing the sitcom juggernaut off for the better part of a decade. The same three traits unified his creations: incredibly smart casting, an interesting concept, and a thin seam of genre subversion running through a solid understanding of the core tropes.
His most recent effort, Reboot, takes those traits and turns them up to eleven. The pitch is simple: an edgy young writer convinces Hulu to reboot an early 2000s family sitcom; as it comes together, we discover the original creator was her father, who walked out her mother and started a new family, then turned that new family into the core conceit of his hit sitcom. Rights issues mean father and daughter end up working together as co-showrunners, working out their issues as they create a new vision for the show. Meanwhile, the dysfunctional cast and crew of the original show come together to work out their issues.
It is, as they say, very meta, and in the wrong hands it would be terrible. In the right hands…well, you have Reboot. The writing isn’t immediately in-your face funny, but it’s incredibly deft and willing to spend an episode building a joke so it lands just right. It’s a show that trusts the audience to get it, rather than making the laughs obvious. It’s the closest I’ve come to the feeling the first seasons of How I Met Your Mother had, before it became a cultural juggernaut and lost all subtlety, shining a spotlight on every callback instead of just throwing them out there and trusting folks to follow along. It’s exactly the mood you want in a TV show about the making of a TV show, and it works. The show’s humor creeps up on you when you’re not looking, and by the time you’re laughing, you’re definitely in its thrall.
And then there’s the other strength of Levitan’s work: casting. Father and daughter are played by Paul Riesler and Rachel Bloom, both folks who have worked on their own incredibly smart sitcoms in the past. The core cast of the show-within-a-show are Keegan-Michael Keys, the criminally underrated Judy Greer, and Johnny Knoxville, who all know their business and deliver. The writers’ room—when it forms—is an unexpected pleasure of brilliant casting, pitching an old guard writing team comprised of veteran actors Fred Melamed, George Wyner, and Rose Abdoo against the younger, queerer, socially conscious young blood played by Dan Leahy, Korama Danquah, and Kimia Behpoornia.
We initially gave the show a try off the strength of the major cast, but the bit parts were a constant flow of “oh, I love that person”. And, in truth, there are certain shows I’ll give a chance on the strength of their IMDB list, especially when it includes secondary-character specialists like Abdoo (who played mechanic Gypsy on Gilmore Girls) and Behpoornia (who played Abby on Atypical) who I’ve rarely seen in anything awful.
If you’re in the mood for something funny and smart, Reboot is an unexpected pleasure.