If you wanted to create an onscreen apotheosis of the middle-aged white guy — one we could all agree to get along with — he would probably be played by Steve Carell. He would be an awkward but loving father; an authentic but unintimidating jock; a try-hard who knows when to back off. He would be amusingly out of touch but possess a sneaky, Yoda-like cool.
Carell, who is both fantastically talented and adventurous in his choices, has not gone looking for that part; his most notable performances, in things like “The Big Short,” “Welcome to Marwen” and “The Morning Show,” have been complicated roles with dark shadings.
But the part, with all its dad-jean banalities, has found Carell in “Rooster,” a campus comedy premiering Sunday on HBO. It doesn’t demand much of him, but he doesn’t let himself coast; bringing to bear his amazing comic timing and touch, he makes quite a bit out of not a lot. His portrayal of Greg Russo, a writer of hacky thrillers who finds himself embroiled in the cultural and sexual politics of a small liberal-arts college, is thoroughly grounded but also funny in surprising, off-kilter ways. “Rooster” is a mess, but Carell is never less than entertaining in it.
The series is the latest project from the very successful writer and producer Bill Lawrence (“Scrubs,” “Shrinking,” “Ted Lasso”), who created it with Matt Tarses. That the show, through six of its 10 half-hour episodes, doesn’t quite come into focus could be expected given all the things Lawrence and Tarses are trying to do.
It is, on one hand, a satire (a fairly mild one) of campus wokeness, a thread that gives the show its sitcom structure and provides many of the punchlines and throwaway gags. Greg, whose education ended with high school but who finds himself teaching a writing seminar at leafy Ludlow College, commits a seemingly endless and notably unimaginative string of spoken and physical faux pas — it’s as if the writers were afraid to make his transgressions too funny. Even Carell can’t do much with these scenes, such as a pratfall that ends with his hands on the breasts of a female student.
At the same time, the show is a sentimental family dramedy. Greg’s presence on campus is necessitated (through some dodgy plot mechanics) by the emotional meltdown of his daughter, Katie (Charly Clive), a Ludlow art history professor. Katie’s very public breakup with another teacher (Phil Dunster) brings out a side of Greg, both needy and overly protective, that drives her crazy, a situation milked for rueful, repetitive humor.
And finally, “Rooster” is a coming-of-middle-age saga. Greg, resigned to being uncomfortable in his own skin — a condition Carell conveys with hilarious authenticity — is daunted by the thought of holding his own on a college campus. (It doesn’t help that his ex-wife, played by Connie Britton, is the school’s most successful alum.) But he finds himself reveling in the things he missed by never going to college: beer-pong marathons, drunken late-night booty calls. He finally begins to feel more like Rooster, the macho alter ego he created for his violent best-sellers.
This second shot at growing up complicates the character — what Greg gains in confidence he risks losing in sensitivity. It gives Carell something to dig into, as does Greg’s sparring relationship with a poetry professor played by Danielle Deadwyler. And there’s a nice running theme about the importance to Greg of books and reading — taking the time to read other people’s writing is his love language. (The character is said to be based on the writer Carl Hiaasen, whose novel “Bad Monkey” was developed into a series by Lawrence.)
“Rooster” remains amorphous, though; it tries for a mix of naturalistic prestige comedy and rapid-fire, stylized sitcom and just misses both. The gap is made manifest in the role of the university’s leader, President Mann, a braying caricature of hidebound patriarchal privilege. John C. McGinley plays him with pretty much the same over-the-top approach he employed as a senior doctor in “Scrubs”; it’s still a funny routine, but it’s out of key with just about everyone else in the show.
It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that Greg links up with Carell’s sitcom past, too: With his neediness and his tendency to joke before he thinks, he’s like a more self-aware, more socially adept update of Michael Scott in “The Office.” Also, Greg and Michael (and Steve) all play hockey.
Mike Hale is a television critic for The Times. He also writes about online video, film and media.
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