Is the network sitcom drought finally coming to an end?
St. Denis Medical is hale and hearty in its second season. Stumble, the cheerleader-centred comedy on NBC is flying high. But the best sign of a revival of the sitcom comes with another NBC series, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins (Monday nights on NBC and streaming on Peacock). It is the brainchild of 30 Rock showrunner and writer Robert Carlock and 30 Rock writer Sam Means.
I can say without fear of contradiction that if you liked 30 Rock (and if you didn’t… what’s wrong with you?) then you will like Reggie Dinkins. The two shows are cut from the same comedy cloth.
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins stars Tracey Morgan (or is it Jordan … I get it mixed up) as a former NFL star whose career came crashing to a halt due to a gambling scandal. (Now, it’s a bit of a stretch to believe Morgan was ever an athlete but play along.) He hires documentarian Arthur Tobin (Daniele Radcliff) to make one of those self-serving docs to repair his reputation. But Tobin has problems of his own and insists on making a real documentary. Erika Alexander plays Dinkins’ ex-wife who manages his finances, and hilarious Bobby Moynihan plays Dinkins’ best buddy Rusty.
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins is solidly in the 30 Rock wheelhouse, with a healthy dose of The Office. And what better comedy combination could there be? The jokes come thick and fast, and the cutaway bits land hilariously. Although the subsequent episodes did not match the manic quality of the pilot, Reggie Dinkins still gives me hope that there is a future for network comedy.
Elsewhere, Jury Duty is back … sort of.
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Jury Duty caused a sensation when it first aired on Amazon in 2023, a brilliant faux documentary about a trial that wasn’t. A courtroom full of improv actors (and one professional, James Marsden) staged a fake trial, with only one person – Ronald Gladden – unaware that the whole thing was a fraud. It made for terrific TV, but can it be replicated? We’ll find out, as Jury Duty 2: Company Retreat begins on Amazon March 20. Same concept – this time set at a company retreat for a fictional hot sauce company, with a temp employee the unwitting centre of the story – but can it replicate the comedy of season one?
And speaking of coming back, former Friend Lisa Kudrow returns for another season of The Comeback (premiering Sunday on Crave and HBO). Kudrow plays Valerie Cherish, a former sitcom star trying to make a comeback in a changing entertainment environment via reality TV. The first season aired in 2008, the second in 2014. I’m a sucker for behind-the-scenes TV series, and I enjoyed the first two seasons (although, that was such a long time ago, I may be wrong).
