A series is not created in a cultural vacuum. Often, seeing a first chapter, you can almost hear how managers were sold to receive green light. In the case of A New Play, Netflix’s new comedy, one can imagine Mindy Kaling, the best-known creator of the quartet who conceived her, mentioning the words “Ted Lasso” during the pitch. Who does not want to emulate the most successful original comedy of recent years, both at the public level as of prizes. And it is understood that it is an heiress series, as a sports sitcom, in the same way that it can also be verified that it seeks its own land as the chapters advance.

Kate Hudson, in the series, is Isla Gordon, the only daughter among the four children of the late owner of Los Angeles Waves, one of the most popular NBA teams. When his brother Cam (Justin Theroux) has a car accident to the eyebrows of all drugs and for having and must give up the presidency, he does not choose or Sandy (Drew Tarver), which dominates numbers but has no idea of basketball, nor to Ness (Scott MacArthur), which has a good relationship with the players but is not particularly ready. The team trusts Isla, aware that its crazy youth was not representative of who is as a woman: the team knows and has a very well furnished head.

The similarities with Ted Lasso are recognizable especially in the first chapter. We have a protagonist woman suffering from the machismo of the sports industry; A team that has a terrible season and that could not be described for the play-offs; We see that in the locker room there are a few egos to control, especially that of Travis (Chett Hanks, the son of Tom), which gives more importance to rap than to his performance on the court; And we are even introduced to Jackie (Fabrizio Guido), a stadium seller who has a gold heart and that at the end of the chapter is understood what role in the global fiction scheme. They are recognizable places, as if A New Play said “huh, if you liked Ted Lasso you will like this most American version and where the ball does not go.”

They are recognizable places, as if A New Play said “huh, if you liked Ted Lasso you will like this most American version and where the ball does not go.”

This sports comedy, however, develops a mold more anchored in the family comedy, with the stabs (always in humorous key) that the brothers are dedicated, which accumulate their ration of traumas due to a toxic father and the privilege they have always suckled. Here, Kate Hudson moves with ease as a heroine of the set: she declares her as the most valid person from the beginning and each chapter tries to demonstrate her intelligence and non-conventional ideas to get the team afloat.

It is curious how the coach’s role in the bad results of the Waves is overlooked, to give more relevance to the protagonist and especially because Jay Ellis, who plays the coach also named Jay, clearly exercises of romantic interest of the protagonist. It may be promised with a Jewish and endearing man (Max Greenfield), whose religion makes sense to mention because of the portrait of the character, but every appearance of the coach as being calm, reflective and muscular squeak “have to end together” almost explicitly.

If someone feels that there are too many characters from goodbye it is because there are them. The characters move through very chewed land like Kate Hudson as a woman against patriarchy (and using her old solvency as the protagonist of Hollywood romantic comedies as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) or Drew Tarver as the homosexual son who feels he is in the shadow of his brothers (and repeating exactly the same role as in The Other Two, a comedy adored by American criticism).

Justin Theroux, for example, reserves an eccentric role of Full Drug Addict, as if he had enforced his popularity (as the protagonist of The Leftovers, Lynch or Ex Jennifer Aniston Chico) in contract negotiations, and Chett Hanks has fun in a job that seems tailored to their ridiculous musical adventures. And, in this abrupt coral, Jay Ellis (of the extraordinary Insecure), Max Greenfield (New Girl) Brenda Song (Dollface) As Isla’s right hand they have to use their television domain to move forward with half cooking.

This is, in a way, the essence of A New Play that is too hurry to present and grease all the pieces that, on a more conventional television, would have developed over time and episodes. Try to be sympathetic (already times gets it) without gaining this sympathy. And, due to these hurries that should not be confused with dynamism, reductionist characters are constructed, they disappear completely in some deliveries (that costumes, which is presented as a fundamental piece, sometimes shines by their absence), it is prevented that the actors find the way to fit their comic rhythms, and the victories are delivered to island with too much ease.

It is a very Netflix series, in the sense that it is seen with extreme ease, but it is missing that an acting template so recognizable and not precisely low-cost has such a hurried and simplistic material. And, if someone asked it, it will not serve as a substitute for Winning Time, the sports series about the splendor era of the Lakers, a team that parodies A New Play.