Peak TV may technically be in the past, but its specter still lingers. How else do you get two flashy, star-studded TV shows about the Los Angeles Lakers in the span of three years? The first, HBO’s “Winning Time,” dramatized the basketball team’s years of triumph in the 1980s; the latest, Netflix’s “Running Point,” is both more contemporary and more fictional, though it has closer ties to the actual Lakers organization through owner Jeanie Buss and front office fixture Linda Rambis, both executive producers.
“Running Point” can and does stand on its own, but it’s useful to drill down on the comparison to “Winning Time” to establish why the newer show may stand a stronger chance at long-term success. (“Winning Time” was abruptly canceled after two seasons, leaving its overarching story obviously unfinished.) Some of that potential comes down to shared strengths: like “Winning Time,” “Running Point” is as packed with famous faces, as any tribute to Hollywood’s home team ought to be. Rom-com queen Kate Hudson takes on her first series lead role as Isla Gordon, a blatant Buss surrogate whose sudden promotion to president of her billionaire family’s crown jewel kicks the 10-episode season into gear.
The daughter of Goldie Hawn is, in essence, a nepo baby playing a nepo baby (or as one character cracks to the middle-aged Isla, a “nepo crone”). Hudson is flanked by names like Justin Theroux as her predecessor and older brother Cam, who resigns when his substance abuse becomes a public scandal, and Chet Hanks as a star player. Hanks has earned much ridicule for his rap career and coining the term “white boy summer,” among other antics, but he’s not just shockingly good as a white trash Floridian hustling brand deals — he’s much more convincing in the role than his real life position as the progeny of Hollywood’s most mild-mannered star.
Yet the differences in approach from “Winning Time” are, inevitably, even more instructive. For one thing, the organization Isla leads is not the Los Angeles Lakers. It’s the Los Angeles Waves, a made-up team staffed and run by made-up people. The Gordons are clearly based on the Busses, and Isla’s arc hews to Jeanie’s seeming self-image as the overlooked daughter of a misogynist rising to the occasion when given the chance. “Running Point” is nonetheless free to cherry pick from reality without being obligated to follow it. The show can invent characters at its convenience, like a stadium concessions worker (Fabrizio Guido) who turns out to be the Gordon kids’ surprise half-brother, and avoid the burden of doing justice to legends like Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
This effort is overseen by a team of TV veterans, another contrast with the film-world brain trust behind “Winning Time.” In lieu of a feature director like Adam McKay, the most prominent backer of “Running Point” is co-creator Mindy Kaling, who executive produces via her company Kaling International. After teen-centric hits “Never Can I Ever” and “Sex Lives of College Girls,” “Running Point” is the first Kaling-verse series in some time to center adults, and reunites her with “The Mindy Project” collaborators Ike Barinholtz, another co-creator, and David Stassen, who showruns. (“Modern Family” alumna Elaine Ko is also a co-creator.) Sitcom stalwarts abound in front of the camera, too: Max “Schmidt” Greenfield plays Isla’s fiancé, a pediatrician and textbook nice Jewish boy, while “Insecure” heartthrob Jay Ellis portrays the Waves’ dashing head coach, also named Jay. Disney Channel graduate Brenda Song plays Ali, Isla’s best friend and hard-charging chief of staff.
There’s an immediate payoff to fusing the plot of “Running Point” to a tried-and-true structure like the workplace sitcom, and entrusting the execution to longtime practitioners of the form. The Kaling crew can craft a compelling will-they-won’t-they in their sleep, and lo, a Lev-Isla-Jay love triangle forms that’s no less enjoyable to watch for how far off you can see it coming. Though, like “Arrested Development” and its darker descendant “Succession” before it, “Running Point” is a family show first, because the Gordons are inextricable from the operation they spearhead. Besides Cam, Isla and newcomer Jackie, the current generation includes jockish GM Ness (Scott MacArthur) and CFO Sandy (Drew Tarver, of the dearly departed “The Other Two”), who has no interest in sports but a healthy one in the bottom line.
“Running Point” breezes along at a bingeable pace, yet pathos slips in around the edges. The Gordons have been left deeply screwed up by their deceased father — not just callous and clueless like all the ultra-rich, but unable to maintain healthy relationships with either partners or one another. Isla and Lev aren’t married, despite being engaged for seven years; Sandy has a boyfriend he hides from his family like a dirty secret; Jackie is reluctantly acknowledged without truly being accepted. Patriarch Jack may be gone, but his shadow looms over the otherwise brightly-lit Waves facility.
It’s hard for “Running Point” to fully cultivate the Gordons’ emotional lives alongside the Waves themselves, their gameplay, dancers, board members and other stakeholders. In short, “Running Point” suffers from the same Achilles’ heel as many other streaming sitcoms: it’s an 18-to-22-episode form squeezed into a much shorter sequence. You feel the compression in the Waves’ lightning-speed season, or how Theroux seems to disappear for long stretches of time. (Though that may be due to his relative fame compared to the rest of the cast.) A palace coup by Sandy and Ness, who don’t respect their former Playboy model sibling, is over before it’s barely begun, abandoning a rich vein of conflict that’s yet to be mined. Most critically, you feel the brevity in the initial fuzziness of Isla’s character, with klutzy slapstick used as a placeholder for personality until the show lets itself sharpen her narcissism into a defining dysfunction.
Perhaps the second season implied by the cliffhanger ending will have more room to grow, even if “Running Point” looks expensive enough for a network-length season to be a stretch. The show deserves it: “Running Point” weds a shiny — if not totally unique in recent history — hook to a reliable setup and charismatic cast. I can’t speak to the level of basketball knowledge at work, but the TV expertise is obvious enough.
All 10 episodes of “Running Point” are now streaming on Netflix.