Stream It or Skip It? ‘Red Oaks’

Here at Decider, we’ve committed ourselves to watching the fall pilots for you and reporting back to help you prioritize your viewing using our super-scientific rating system. Below, we tell you everything you need to know about Red Oaks.

A Guide to Our Rating System

Opening Shot: The opening of a pilot can set a mood for the entire show (think Six Feet Under); thus, we examine the first shot of each pilot.
The gist: The “who, what, where, when, why?” of the pilot.
Our take: What did we think? Are we desperate for more, or engaging in a desperate, Faustian bargain to get those 43 minutes back?
Sex and Skin: That’s all you care about anyway, right? We let you know how quickly the show gets down and dirty.
Parting Shot: Where does the pilot leave us? Hanging off a cliff, or running for the hills?
Sleeper Star: Basically, someone in the cast who is not the top-billed star (Sorry, Rob Lowe!) who shows great promise.
Most Pilot-y Line: Pilots have a lot of work to do: world building, character establishing, and stakes raising. Sometimes that results in some pretty clunky dialogue.
Our call: We’ll let you know if you should, ahem, Stream It or Skip It.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcGIvQJhbSY]

Red Oaks

Opening Shot: The title card locates us in New Jersey, 1985. David Myers (Craig Roberts) and his dad (Richard Kind) play a friendly tennis game, with pops dispensing life and career advice to his resisting son. Suddenly, Craig’s dad suffers a heart attack and unleashes a hilarious deathbed confession monologue (“I love the Orientals.” “I think your mother’s a lesbian. Or at least technically bisexual.”) Spoiler alert: Craig’s old man hangs on for longer than he thinks he’s going to, and these confessions haunt the poor, impressionable teen.
The gist: Red Oaks follows 20-year-old David Myers as he struggles to figure out his future. David’s summer job is working as a tennis pro at a fancy country club, where he has to deal with a testy wealthy client. Adding to his troubles are his father’s heart attack, his beautiful girlfriend, and a mysterious brunette he can’t help but to be drawn to.
Our take: The true star of this show is the incredibly vivid world that the creative team has constructed. Perhaps it was a bit of nostalgia for my own summers waiting tables at a country club, but halfway through this episode I found myself wondering why there’s never been a show set in this world before. The social lines and power dynamics are so clearly drawn: the tennis pros wither around the golf pros, the lifeguards rule the school, the valets desperately try to be noticed by the clientele — or by anyone, really. There is incredible comedic and dramatic potential in these social dynamics and the show seems well poised to navigate this landscape deftly. As is often the case in ensemble shows, it feels like there is maybe one or two plot lines in the pilot we could do without (my vote: cut the tired story of the chubby, pot smoking valet trying to woo the bombshell lifeguard). But the writing is funny without being jokey, the time period is felt without being overwhelming, and the soundtrack will undoubtedly make you miss those youthful summer days when all you had to worry about was not still being too drunk when you show up for work in the morning.
Sex and Skin: Who likes short tennis shorts? Paul Reiser and Richard Kind like short tennis shorts. And all of the girls in this show love taking their tops off. There’s golf course sex, a skinny dipping sequence, and strip putt-putt. Network TV, this is not.
Parting Shot: David learns that the mysterious girl he’s been lusting after (Alexandra Socha) is the daughter of his nemesis, the club’s president Dog Getty (Paul Reiser).
Sleeper Star: While the show is clearly fashioned to be an ensemble piece, Jennifer Grey and Richard Kind shine as David’s neurotic, self-interested parents.
Most Pilot-y Line: The script is so well-written and the performances so natural that even when David baldly states, “I need this job,” you can’t help but believe him.
Our call: Stream It. It will be interesting to see if the show can figure out exactly what it wants to be — the creators reportedly set out to make Caddyshack meets The Graduate: no short order — but the show is beautifully shot, the world is incredibly specific, and the writing is solid.
[Stream Red Oaks on Amazon Prime Video]

Brett Barbour is a writer who lives in Brooklyn and is prone to binge-watching.

 

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