Brief Story Line
Marvyn Korn (John Stamos - Full House, Grandfathered TV series etc) was a highly successful University Basketball coach whose bad temperament and latest antics resulted him being sacked and the only job he could acquire was to coach a basketball team in Westbrook private school for girls in San Diego. He has to report to the Dean, Sherilyn Thomas (Yvette Nicole Brown - Community TV series etc) who did not really like his presence. There was also school counselor George Pappas (Richard Robichaux) who was not a fan of Marvyn due to his past bad behavior.
Marvyn had to work with assistant coach Holly (Jessalyn Gilsig - Vikings, Nip/Tuck TV series etc) who was quite close with the girls. The team starters consisted of their star player Louise (Nell Verlaque), the power forward Destiny (Tiana Le), Olive (Monique Green), Mouse (Tisha Eve Custodio) and Samantha (Cricket Wampler). Meanwhile Marvyn's daughter Emma (Sophia Mitri Schloss) had to struggle personally due to her father's past action and the longing for his presence.
So what would happen to Marvyn who had to accustom himself to new life as coach of high school girl's basket ball team while juggling with his personal challenges of managing his daughter and other teenagers problems? Find them all in this fun and interesting sports drama.
End of Brief Story Line
As I mentioned above, I was intrigued by the interesting premise of a high profile sports coach demoted to a girls high school team coach which sounded like fun. And it was indeed fun and there were a lot of chaos especially in the early part when we were introduced with the main character Marvyn Korn. Being a no nonsense coach accustomed to work with male athletes, he now had to adjust himself to teenage girls whose problems were completely different. But as the story progressed, the series felt more drama than comedy, especially in episode 3 and subsequently, though the humor was always available albeit briefly.
The focus of this series was not only on Marvyn Korn character, but sometimes it also centered on the girls, although I thought it was not truly balanced as I felt few girls got more spotlight than others. Their story were pretty interesting to watch. The basketball play were also shown quite frequently either the competitive games or the practice. My most favorite would be the game against their meanest rival Carlsbad team with their head coach Joyce McCarthy (played perfectly by Camryn Manheim - Stumptown TV series etc). The fun part about watching sports drama would always be when the story was about underdog player/team, so it was nice to see such theme shown in here. But if I have to complain, I think the final game did not happen the way I expected to be.
The cast did a wonderful job in this series, making me felt attached with the characters. And despite most of the girls were practically new faces (at least for me), they were all convincing as the high school girls of various background. I also like the fact that the people portraying teenagers mostly look young enough to be high school students, unlike in other movies/series where the people looked too mature. Kudos to the casting department.
Btw this series was co-created by Dean Lorey, Brad Garret (Robert Barone in Everybody Loves Raymond sitcom etc) & David E. Kelley (creator of Big Sky, The Undoing and many other successful series). So it was not surprising to see this to be a good quality series and receiving praise from critics. Having only 10 episodes of around 42-45 minutes also made this one easy to complete. So if you are looking for a sports drama starring the beloved John Stamos as head coach of basketball team for high school girls, while managing his personal life as father of a teenage daughter, then this one would be to your liking. I myself enjoyed this series, though it would have been more fantastic if the finale was done in different way. Not sure if there will be a second season, but I would definitely love to watch their continued story.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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