Summary
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins is very funny and very familiar in Episode 1, relying on sharp writing and Tracy Morgan’s well-honed comic persona, both of which work just fine.
Some shows are designed to push boundaries, to reinvent longstanding ideas about genre and form. The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins isn’t one of them. The NBC sitcom from Robert Carlock and Sam Means is intended to be funny and familiar, and in Episode 1, it succeeds in both. But given how comfortable the style and material are, how could it not?
Check out the particulars here. Tracy Morgan plays the titular Reggie Dinkins, a former New York Jets running back of almost preternatural ability who tanked his own career after illegally betting on himself. The scandal broke because he mixed up the number of his bookie and a TV phone-in, outing himself live on television. The result was a lifetime ban and a degree of reputational ruin, but Dinkins doesn’t seem to have suffered too much thanks to his ex-wife and agent, Monica, who has managed his money responsibly over the years, despite having been replaced by a much younger model in the form of Brina. But Dinkins wants to restore his reputation by throwing that cash at pretentious British documentarian Arthur Tobin (an enjoyably frazzled Daniel Radcliffe). He has hired Tobin to make a puff piece, but the Oscar-winning filmmaker is adamant about rejuvenating his own career with a magnum opus. What could go wrong?
With all this, you can see immediately why this show works. The rhythm of parodical real-world sports analogues and Family Guy-style cutaways is threaded with ridiculous laugh-out-loud one-liners and absurd scenarios – such as Reggie forcing Tobin’s cameraman to film him on top of a ladder to create the impression he can still dunk a basketball – and held together by Morgan’s dependable Morgan performance, which at least in the pilot hits exactly the notes you’d expect it to.
It’s not easy to rattle off solid jokes this consistently, so The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins deserves praise for that, but it’s clear that its most interesting feature is the idea of three dovetailing careers all being on the line at the same time. Dinkins needs the documentary to be a success to rebuild his public image and secure him the Hall of Fame jersey he feels sure he’ll get in response; Arthur needs it because his own career has tanked following a viral meltdown on the set of a big-budget superhero movie; and Monica needs it because outside of Reggie, her only clients are, according to Reggie’s live-in former teammate and best friend Rusty, “a kid who plays Fortnite and Geena Davis—but just for archery.”
Initially, I thought we might be dealing with something more interested in the form of documentary filmmaking itself, a bit like The Office, which only worked – in the U.K. version, anyway, but to some extent the U.S. one – because the characters knew they were on camera and modulated their behaviour for an audience. There’s a little bit of that here in the pilot, with Reggie stiffly walking around and reading out pre-written self-aggrandising lines. He also doesn’t seem to understand what a documentary is, pitching an idea for a totally fictional scene involving a replica of the sword Tom Cruise used in The Last Samurai. But this falls by the wayside as things progress, and I suspect it’ll be abandoned entirely, since the whole premise of the show rests on the idea that the film needs to be authentic for it to work.
What this means is that we’re relying on the performances and the writing, and so far, so good. Morgan is great, as ever, because Reggie is allowed to simply be a slightly more egoistic version of him. Radcliffe is great, the best part of the show for me, especially when he’s allowed to drop the fussy auteur shtick and have big meltdowns full of great physical comedy. And Erika Alexander’s Monica is solid in a pretty unique role, embodying an earnest sense of affection and long-time familiarity with Reggie, while also having a totally platonic, sick-of-it vibe. That may evolve in time, since there’s a chance that the documentary might cause these two to reconcile, but for now, I kind of like things as they are.
I don’t expect The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins itself to evolve into anything more than what it is right now, but that’s fine when it’s so funny, smart, and comforting to watch.
