Lucky Hank

As of now, it’s mostly a work-in-progress, but there’s ample potential for it to evolve into something good. ... This show’s ability to settle in for a long run will not depend on Odenkirk, who’s instantly comfortable with what should be another indelible character, but on bringing everything around him up to his level.

“Lucky Hank” so accurately captures professorial ennui. But it might capture ennui a little too well, resulting in a show that seems to amble in no particular direction with little indication of when it might hit a stride. ... But Hank is the type of lovable curmudgeon that some viewers relate to so deeply that his mere involvement can create genuine stakes.

The whole canceled-on-campus thing was already done on Sandra Oh’s “The Chair.” “Lucky Hank” doesn’t drag it out, which is nice, and the resolution of the plot line is comic, which is also nice. But the plot makes for an inauspicious beginning. ... And then I saw the second episode, and it was a marked improvement over the first. Unfortunately, since AMC sent out only two episodes for review, I can’t say whether “Lucky Hank” will continue to find its best self after that.

The characters’ antics and idiosyncrasies—disrupting each other’s classes, dedicating lectures to tearing down each other’s work, talking insistently in literary quotations—often verge on the cartoonish. ... Lucky Hank does traffic in some interesting ideas about the generational divide between faculty and students.

With only the first two episodes as guide — admittedly not much, or nearly enough — Odenkirk's post-"Saul '' second act is a perfectly pleasant letdown.