‘Running Point’ review: Kate Hudson’s basketball comedy is flagrantly unfunny

Moments after Isla Gordon (Kate Hudson) is named president of the Los Angeles Waves professional basketball team, her best friend/Waves’ Chief of Staff Ali Lee (Brenda Song) offers a warning along with her congratulations. “You can never f— up,” she tells Isla. “When a guy gets a big job, he can f— up a bunch and it’s them getting their sea legs or some s—. But women have to be perfect right off the bat.”

That depressing fact gets reiterated many times, without much variation or additional insight, during Running Point’s 10-episode season. The simplistic messaging wouldn’t matter as much if the show compensated for it with a strong creative offense, but the new Netflix comedy — inspired by the story of Los Angeles Lakers president and owner Jeanie Buss — is puzzlingly listless. Created by Elaine Ko, Mindy Kaling, Ike Barinholtz, and David Stassen, Running Point wastes Hudson’s star power and the significant comedic talents of its ensemble on uninspired writing and unlikable characters.

All her life, Isla Gordon loved basketball. But she was a girl, and her father, Los Angeles Waves president Jack Gordon, was a sexist bastard, so he groomed her brothers as his successors instead. Eventually, Isla got a job with the Waves — as head of charitable endeavors — while her brothers Cam (Justin Theroux), Ness (Scott MacArthur), and Sandy (Drew Tarver), continued to run the team from the front office as president, General Manager, and Chief Financial Officer, respectively. (And yes, they still refused to listen to Isla’s ideas, even though she knows more about basketball than the three of them combined.) But when Cam steps down to deal with his crack addiction and names Isla his replacement, she finally gets a shot at proving she should have been the heir apparent all along.

Of course, as the first female president of the Waves, she’ll face intense (and sexist) scrutiny as she navigates the Waves’ most pressing challenges: Taming problematic player Travis Buggs (Chet Hanks), who’s actively trying to get traded; helping Coach Brown (Jay Ellis) pull the team out of a slump; and defying her critics — including Ness, Sandy, and a popular sports commentator (Jon Glaser) — who are desperate to see her fail. Isla delivers much of this information in the pilot via a sunny voiceover, punctuated by freeze-frame introductions of characters featuring their name and job title scrawled on the screen in meticulously messy yellow text. (The latter technique, which was novel when The Bernie Mac Show did it in 2001, is another of Running Point’s oddly stale choices.)

Every episode follows a standard pattern: Isla is confronted with a problem — a lost sponsor, trade rumors, a disruptive suspension — which she solves, only to be confronted with a new problem before credits roll. There’s nothing wrong with that structure; it’s the basis for almost all situation comedies, but it’s on the writers to build something original on that foundation. Yet Point’s three (!) showrunners (Stassen, Barinholtz, and Kaling share that title) settle for the most predictable conclusions to most of the narrative set-ups, from episode-only arcs to the all-too-obvious finale cliffhanger. The lazy writing and general lack of originality is especially confounding given that Kaling is the mastermind behind Never Have I Ever and The Sex Lives of College Girls, two recent streaming comedies that are as fresh and funny as Point is futile.

What saves Running Point from total failure is its cast — not just the regular ensemble, but its deep bench of excellent guest stars, including Nicole Sullivan as Travis’ meddling mama, Bonnie; Jury Duty standout (and Ike’s dad) Alan Barinholtz as Bernie Berger, the Gordon family’s overly affectionate lawyer; and Diedrich Bader as the Waves’ long-overlooked assistant coach, Tony.

Though the Gordons themselves are extremely difficult to root for, Point’s stars have enough charisma to make them watchable. Theroux brings a mix of brash magnetism and commanding frankness to his recurring appearances as Cam, while MacArthur leavens Ness’ doofus, manchild tendencies with an appealing earnestness. In early episodes, Sandy is drawn as brittle and almost mean, but Tarver’s masterful deadpan and inherent vulnerability helps to humanize the aloof CFO. Despite their efforts, the only truly likable characters fall outside the Gordon family: Charlie (Scott Evans), Sandy’s dog-groomer boyfriend; Lev (Max Greenfield), Isla’s remarkably patient fiancé; and Jackie Moreno (Fabrizio Guido), a Waves concessions-stand clerk who gets promoted to be Isla’s assistant. The more time we spent with Guido’s Jackie, with his wide-eyed naiveté and sincere desire to earn the Gordons’ approval, the more I wished Running Point was told from his point of view.

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Hudson activates her considerable leading lady charm as Isla. This may technically be a workplace comedy, but the writers choose to paint Isla as a prototypical rom-com heroine — she’s simultaneously a savvy girlboss and a clumsy flibbertigibbet. Sure, Isla is a basketball savant who can out-strategize her male colleagues when she calms down enough to get out of her own way, but she also keeps walking face-first into the glass doors that lead to the Waves’ practice court. Maybe this Running running joke is the show’s way of symbolizing the invisible but very real barriers professional women place in the workplace; or maybe it’s just a cheap sight gag to make Isla seem more accessible as a character. On Running Point, as in the real world, women are not allowed to have it all. Grade: C-

Running Point premieres Thursday, Feb. 27 on Netflix.