Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Reboot’ On Hulu, A Behind-The-Scenes Comedy About An Edgy Reboot Of A 20-Year-Old Family Sitcom

People might forget, but Modern Family‘s first few seasons were among the funniest sitcom seasons ever, mainly because co-creator Steven Levitan parlayed his many years of experience into a character-driven sitcom that wasn’t afraid to get silly. It garnered armfuls of Emmys, and it deserved them during those first seasons. Levitan is back, this time on Hulu, with a show that dives into the reboot craze but also examines just how the casts of long-running shows are like families: really, really dysfunctional and filled with tension.

REBOOT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Two sets of feet: One in flats and goofy socks and the other in heels.

The Gist: Hannah Korman (Rachel Bloom) is in the flats and goofy socks. She’s at Hulu’s offices to pitch her ideas for shows, and is sweating so bad she has to borrow the tiny blazer the actress waiting next to her is wearing.

The Hulu execs love her edgy writing, but she has an interesting idea for a series: A reboot of a ’00s family sitcom called Step Right Up. It was one of her favorites growing up, and she wants to bring an edginess and backstories to characters that really didn’t have any. The execs, including Elaine Kim (Krista Marie Yu), the head of comedy development, find that the cast has had a tumultuous time since the show ended, but are all available.

Reed Sterling (Keegan-Michael Key), who killed the show when he left to do a movie no one saw, is overthinking auditions, doing small stage shows in New York, and bringing up his Yale education whenever he gets the chance. Bree Marie Jensen (Judy Greer), with whom he had an on-set relationship before quitting, married a duke in some chilly little-known country. Clay Barber (Johnny Knoxville) has been in and out of jail and rehab. And Zack Jackson (Callum Worthy), who played the young kid, is now all grown up but somehow still acts like a silly kid.

Everyone’s personal stuff comes up, especially Reed and Bree’s history — he accidentally sees her topless when he enters her trailer — but they’re all happy that they’re back and doing a version of their show that’s “very streaming”, as Reed calls it. But then Hannah quits when the show’s original showrunner, Gordon Gelman (Paul Reiser), comes back and wants to make it back into the goofy sitcom it was in 2002. The cast makes and effort to get Hannah back, but then they also find out exactly why Hannah wrote her original script and why she doesn’t want to work with Gordon.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Steven Levitan is the executive producer of Reboot and it certainly has the new-school-meets-old-school feel of his previous series, Modern Family. And, while it shares the jittery camera work of that long-running Emmy perennial, it’s not shot like a mockumentary like MF was.

Our Take: The reason why we mention an old-school-meets-new-school style is that if anyone can pull that off, it’s Levitan; he made his name with traditional four-camera sitcoms like Just Shoot Me, Frasier and Wings, but has also done his share of single-cams, like The Larry Sanders Show and Oliver Beene. He brought both styles together so well on Modern Family, especially during its first few seasons, that he showed a lot of writers what was possible.

Reboot has all of those qualities. The humor is character-driven from the outset, but can be riotously funny (even more so now that Levitan and his writers aren’t restricted by network standards). There are clever lines, but also setup-punch lines and physical humor, like Greer struggling to get her shirt off after it was caught in her bra. Even though the show is a continuing story, there are funny B-stories with funny guests, like Kerri Kenney playing Zack’s mom, who gets entangled with Clay in an unexpected way in episode 2.

The stellar cast is up to the task, of course. Key is an expert at playing someone who can be haughty and humbled at the same time, and Greer isn’t ever shy about putting herself out there physically. Knoxville is surprisingly good as a guy who knows that he has lots of impulse control problems.

However, the key to the show, at least early on, will be the relationship between Bloom’s Hannah and Reiser’s Gordon, which is revealed at the end of the first episode. It’s not just “edgy writer vs. sitcom hack”; there’s a real history between the two that will be slowly revealed and mended as they figure out how to work together. Again, this is where Levitan has excelled over the years; his sitcoms always did a good job of establishing the humanity behind the funny stuff, and by the end of the first two episodes, we’re really loving the scenes where Hannah and Gordon butt heads but then somehow come to an understanding.

This combination of really funny jokes and situations, along with real human warmth and relationship building seems to be all too rare these days, especially on streaming. But Levitan has the experience to not only hit on that combination but sustain it for multiple seasons.

Sex and Skin: As mentioned before, Judy Greer goes topless in one of her first scenes in the series.

Parting Shot: After the cast finds out from Hannah about how she’s connected to Gordon, Zack walks up to the group and says, “I’m here. What did I miss?”

Sleeper Star: Levitan will make some pretty good use of guest stars. We already mentioned Kenney, but in Episode 1, Eliza Coupe is her usually funny self as Norah, Reed’s girlfriend.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Elaine mentions that the average watch time for the original Step Right Up is 63 minutes, another executive (Kate Comer) wonders if that’s just people leaving it on for their dog to watch. “No, we track that.” It’s a not-so-subtle dig at streaming services’ mysterious algorithms.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Reboot is right up there with Abbott Elementary as 2022’s funniest new series, mainly because the confidence Levitan has in creating character-driven comedy is enhanced by a fantastic cast.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.