Reboot: Season 1
Created by: Steven Levitan
Executive producers: Steven Levitan, John Enbom, Danielle Stokdyk, Jeff Morton
I don't usually jump at comedies, but I do enjoy behind-the-scenes peeks into the writing and especially film industries, even if those peeks are highly dramatized or fictionalized.
Although it was a bit too raunchy for my taste (though honestly, most shows are; I just have to mentally filter it out), it was exactly the kind of behind-the-scenes peek I was hoping for. Even though I have no way of knowing whether it was an accurate glimpse or way off, I can probably safely assume it has elements of reality. The series began with a Hannah, a screenwriter, pitching a reboot TV show idea to Hulu--vera meta, considering the season aired on Hulu. Her pitch was greenlit, and the show was soon following Hannah back and forth between the Writer's Room, as she co-writes the show, and the studio, as she oversees production.
My personal favorite aspect of the show, of course, is the Writer's Room, even though its portrayal was clearly written to cater to the show's comedy aspect. It was still fun to watch the different writers interact and how the show's writers blended an authentic writer's room atmosphere with fun characaters and drama that pushed the show's actual plot forward. I bet it must've felt very meta for the actors to portray network writers.
The show also did a good job with making the season's plot personal and push real emotional drama and personal connections forward while also keep it funny and (mostly) lighthearted. At the end of the pilot, Hannah discovers that she's been placed in a co-showrunner position with Gordon-- who turns out to be her estranged biological father. She nearly quits the job upon discovering this, but Reed, Clay, Zack, and Bree (the actors in Hannah's show) beg her to stay on because they need her influence to keep the show successful. Thus the season unfolds as Hannah's modern ideas (and personality) conflicts with Gordon's traditional ideology at every turn, with all the staff writers and actors caught in between.
Even with my very pick ideas of comedy, I still found myself laughing pretty hard at a lot of episodes and appreciating its self-referential music choices. I also appreciated that despite Hannah and Gordon's strongly conflicting styles, the season went in a direction of healing and their show became a vector for them to slowly make up and come to be on better terms.
The season finale left us on a cliffhanger with an executive threatening to cancel their show (again, meta) and Gordon resigning in order to save it. With Hannah finally on good terms with him, she's now faced with having to bring him back and keep the show going. The series hasn't been renewed by Hulu yet, so I can only hope to see how Hannah keeps it all together.
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