‘Rooster’, ‘Scrubs’, ‘Ted Lasso’: The wholesome universe of Bill Lawrence

It takes a while to understand what Rooster is about. Or why this HBO series — streaming in India on JioHotstar— even exists. In the show, a man who writes “airport reads” has been offered the job of writer-in-residence at a University, but by the time the first episode ends, he hasn’t taken it up, or found reason to. The paperback writer, played by the endlessly interesting Steve Carell, has no real reason to stick around, yet there’s something charming about his confusion, enough for us to hang around and meet campus characters till, halfway down episode 2, he takes up the gig. This is relaxed storytelling, and feels like anathema to these cliffhanger-loving times.

The show’s creator Bill Lawrence has always gone against the grain, but softly. Lawrence makes shows for people who want to be hugged, preferably by a wisecracking ensemble and in flattering light. His characters tumble into scenes, carrying neuroses, punchlines and life-lessons like overstuffed tote bags. Of Lawrence’s hits — which include Shrinking, Cougar Town and Spin City — I loved hospital-comedy Scrubs the most: goofy, inventively silly, and capable of landing an emotional sucker-punch right under the ribcage. Like the great M*A*S*H*, it understood that laughing was the only way to cope with the absurdity of hospital life.

In recent years, Lawrence has been building a world of dramedies operating on the devout belief that broken people can be repaired by candour, community and one exceptionally well-timed speech. This is lovely, but can get oppressive. Ted Lasso, embraced like gospel by a world battered during the pandemic, eventually felt less like a series than a scented candle: warm, flattering, and determined to calm you whether you liked it or not.

In Rooster, it’s hot chocolate. Carell’s character Greg Russo is enchanted by the fact that the coffee shop on campus gives out peppermint sticks to stir their chocolate, and tries to use this to get his daughter Katie, a professor, to not resign. As a man who writes bestsellers and never went to college, Russo doesn’t fit in but amiably (and clumsily) tries to find a place for himself and his troubled daughter — all while confronting a professor, rebuffing another professor and navigating the tricky waters of friendship with the president of the university, a fitness freak who lives on gossip.

Rooster, created by Lawrence with Matt Tarses, is cleverly written. Russo looks at the resignation letter his daughter has typed and is taken aback at the size of the font. A student (standout performer Lauren Tsai) who is dating a British professor says being with him is “like having sex with Paddington Bear” but looks blank at the marmalade reference her lover makes. Russo, guiding his daughter through a letter of apology, listens to her approach and, simultaneously supportive and crushing, says “It’s your letter, it doesn’t have to be great.”

Carell is playing a silvery Michael Scott, older and more well-meaning but often as out of touch, saying things in class that keep getting him hauled into disciplinary hearings. Rooster lets Carell be funny and silly and chaotic, which is always a delight, even as he is judged for writing bestsellers — “populism isn’t very popular here” — by everyone except the president, who is glad to feature, for once, a writer whose name is familiar to the parents of the students.

This (frequently shirtless) president is played by John C McGinley, Dr Cox from Scrubs, a show which has itself returned — after 16 years — and is also streaming on JioHotstar. The diagnosis on this reboot is surprisingly good, and it has become a show I look forward to each week. The old Scrubs gang is here — Zach Braff’s JD, Donald Faison’s Chris Turk, Judy Reyes’ Carla and Sarah Chalke’s highstrung Elliot — and, unlike other shows that feel stuck in the past, this one is more forward-facing than nostalgic. It’s still schmaltz scene after schmaltzy scene with silly cutaways holding everything together, but it feels like one of today’s shows and not a nostalgia-trap.

The returning actors — and their characters — show no ring-rust, paired alongside young new doctors who livestream in order to pay off their student loans or are sexually fluid. Scrubs feels current topics, with doctors being rated on apps by disgruntled patients and patients following high-protein TikTok diets instead of taking care of themselves, and is cognizant of its own issues. Dr Cox calling Dr Elliot “Barbie” as a longrunning joke is called out here by JD as behaviour that undermined the blonde doctor for years. The self-awareness, importantly, doesn’t get in the way of laughter or camaraderie.

These shows do not want to be “prestige TV.” They only want to bring people together, with each other and with their handkerchiefs.

In 2021 when I had explained, in this column why Ted Lasso was not a very good show, Lawrence stumbled upon it but — in absolute Lasso style — agreed with me instead of arguing, tweeting that this was “totally what we were going for.” This typifies Bill Lawrence’s quiet rebellion. At a time when other TV-dominating creators are all about the big hooks, with Ryan Murphy trading in scandals and Shonda Rhimes cornering the market on cliffhangers, there is something to be said for Lawrence’s comfortingly quilted shows which insist that a lovingly baked biscuit can save the day. If we are indeed to crumble, let us be cookies.

Streaming Tip Of The Week:

Before Ted Lasso returns to Apple TV this year, you’d do well to catch up with the ongoing third season of Shrinking, Lawrence’s comedy about a renegade therapist where Harrison Ford is having an infectiously good time. The legendary actor even hums the Indiana Jones theme.