Big Shot

Yes, the premise of Big Shot is familiar, but it’s more satisfying and dramatically fulfilling than you might expect.

The three episodes provided for review set up a reliably pleasant structure: Coach Korn's single-minded approach clashes comedically with the emotional intricacies of teenage girlhood; bristling and push-back on both sides ensues; by the end of the hour, compromise is achieved, and everyone learns a little bit about themselves in the process. Stamos is the ultimate utility player, capable of delivering dry wit and sweet sentiment in equal measure. The other adult characters aren't as well-defined.

If you want adult drama from your TV coaching, Beartown will still have to suffice, and Big Shot won't fill the Ted Lasso-shaped comic hole in your heart. But I like the potential here and hope the show develops a stronger sense of what niche — or niche within a niche — it's trying to occupy.

It’s a sweet, sunny series if not as endearing as Disney+’s “The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers.”

It’s great inoffensive family programming with good actors doing good work (especially Stamos). It is hard not to see that this is a story that doesn’t understand how the original script has aged, but odds are the longer it goes on it will shake off the dust of a bygone era.

Someone we’re told was cruel even by the standards of college coaching downshifts easily to, if not cuddly, then at least amiable. Much of the performance is simply being John Stamos. The kids on Stamos’ team have an easy chemistry, but other adult roles tend towards the schematic. Which is fine: This is a show for kids and their parents to watch together. But one wonders, first, what exact involvement David E. Kelley had in a show that feels so underwritten.

What we get is a chaotic kind of emptiness. On the teen side, while the clutch of young actors who make up Westbrook’s basketball team are charming and do what they can with the scripts they’re given, what little insight we’re given into their respective characters is just deeply, deeply dull. As for what Korn’s story is meant to be, meanwhile (beyond an incomprehensible apologia for emotional abuse as “coaching” tactic, that is), I’m still not convinced even Big Shot knows for sure.