Even though it has big names like David Gordon Green (Eastbound & Down) and Steven Soderbergh behind it, Amazon’s Red Oaks isn’t doing anything new for comedy and television. In fact, it’s more of a rehashing of other films like Caddyshack and Adventureland.
Craig Roberts plays David, an NYU sophomore who gets a job as a tennis pro at the Red Oaks Country Club over the summer in 1985. There, he meets fellow head tennis pro Nash (Ennis Esmer), who serves as Ty Webb to David’s Danny Noonan. David needs this job because he doesn’t want to work for his father (Richard Kind), especially after his dad has a heart attack and admits to David that he should have never married his mother (Jennifer Grey) who’s most likely a lesbian (at the very least bi). This is a lot to take in, but Red Oaks never quite lets you know whether David feels anything about this other than weirded out.
The supporting “adult” cast is probably the best thing about this show, including Paul Reiser as Getty, the head of the country club, and of course, Kind and Grey, who provide most of the laughs in the pilot episode. But the “teenage” cast is what you’ve seen before in other teen TV and film comedies. There’s Wheeler (Oliver Cooper), the stoner who has a thing for the popular girl, and Karen (Gage Golightly), David’s aerobic instructor girlfriend who looks a little more costumey than other characters on this show (although it was the ‘80s when most people looked costumey).
It’s strange that this show is coming out in the fall when perhaps it would have found more of an audience in the summer, especially given the setting. On the other hand, times have changed. Summer has become a peak part of TV season, and if this show would have come out in June, it would have been up against the hype of Orange is the New Black. If it had more to offer in its pilot, that might not have been a problem.
But really, the only difference between movies like Caddyshack and Red Oaks is swapping golf for tennis, and originality for hackneyed teen comedy hijinks we’ve all seen before. It could get better with practice, but we all know where the follow-through is leading.
