MONDAY MARCH 20
LUCKY HANK
Chaos in the English department
Streaming: TVNZ+
Academic fiction and the “campus novel” have a prominence in contemporary American literature that has largely not transferred to the screen. As viewers, we’re generally a lot more interested in lawyers and doctors than we are in professors of English. But Richard Russo’s 1997 novel , which was inspired by his own teaching experiences, has made the leap. Bob Odenkirk () plays Professor “Hank” Devereaux, the chair of: “I love the tone. It’s more comic. I feel like I relate to the main character, who’s a misanthrope. He’s a cranky guy, but you like him. And I just think tonally, it’s great. It feels like a new mashup of comedy and drama that we’ve been on the verge of for a long time. [It’s like] you took a very fun show – like a – and you said, ‘Let’s slow down and get to know these people and have their internal battles be a little bit more of the subject matter.’” There are some other names in the cast, including Mireille Enos (, Oscar Nunez (), Kyle MacLachlan () and alumni Chris Diamantopoulos and Suzanne Cryer. But it seems clear that is mostly about the special sauce Odenkirk brought to Saul.
