Roadies

There are things to enjoy about Roadies, like Wilson and Gugino’s bantering and a burgeoning running gag about Staton-House’s inability to hold on to an opening act. But the show can’t bring these elements into harmony with grating performances by Baker and Byers or the baffling Magical Native American characterization of the security chief played by Branscombe Richmond.

While Roadies has a number of good set pieces, they don't quite mesh together to make a cohesive program. Much of that is due to its meandering first two episodes. ... [In episode three] Personalities started to finally develop, a hilarious guest stint by Rainn Wilson provided plenty of laughs and this series finally started to show its potential.

Roadies isn’t all there yet, but it’s trying something different.

An uneven peek at the men and women who make headliners look good night after night after night.

Roadies could level out as it continues through its first season, learning to balance its more mawkish, sentimental aspects with its clear dedication to music as art and the people who work to preserve its purity. But in its current state, the show is a lumpy, bumpy ride, one that will wholly appeal to those who ever Crowe’s most cloying works but only intermittently cast a spell over everyone else.

With Roadies, Showtime debuts a series focused on a fresh subculture (the behind-the-scenes crew responsible for staging a rock band’s tour) with a lighter, if overly earnest, tone. Only one member of the band is shown in the pilot in a brief scene. This tactic might be an overly calculated conceit if the roadies were a less interesting bunch.

It’s better than Vinyl--Crowe has a better, fresher idea in following the earnest people behind the scenes rather than the exploited stars and venal executives. But it still doesn’t feel like a satisfying hit.

The preachiness can be areal buzz kill when pretentiously overamped acolytes spout on and on about changing the world. ... Still, you may well dig the ride, thanks to endearing company of Luke Wilson's Peter Pan of a road manager. [27 Jun - 10 Jul 2016, p.15]

Roadies, with its cutesy characters, doesn’t bring him back to his early glory so much as remind us how far he has drifted from it. Crowe’s bona fides do show in Roadies, in the elaborate backstage settings and in the way they’re filmed as a kind of amusement park ride.

Instead of sounding passionate and honest, the characters on Roadies sound like they’re reading promotional copy for the artists who appear as guest stars.

Unlikeable characters fill the foreground, while an unfocused music track fills the background.

Maybe over time Roadies will settle into a groove, but as of now it’s yet to find its rhythm.

If Roadies spent half as much time showing us what roadies actually do as it wastes on framing gazes of tortured longing, it would be a very different, which is to say much better, show. Instead viewers get tossed a few slivers of meat--Phil tearing up whenever he mentions Ronnie Van Zant, Keisha Castle-Hughes’ engineer setting up for the “song of the day”--and a whole lot of corn.

The characters are corny--Bill's a rock-and-roll lifer who's flawed but lovable, Shelli's a no-nonsense independent woman and dispenser of wisdom--but Wilson and Gugino are total pros, and they have a genuine chemistry. Which is more than can be said for the rest of the cast, despite the actors' best efforts.

At least that’s a point of view; ultimately, Roadies, in the three episodes screened, suffers from a lack of story. It relies on hoary life-on-the-road plots, including an excruciating one about an unhinged groupie (Jacqueline Byers).

Overlooking logic in favor of sentiment, the series never gives its viewers the freedom to suss out its characters naturally, or gives much of a reason to stick around for the rest of the tour.

The task of holding things together under this assault and others will fall to the amiable tour manager, Bill (Luke Wilson, awkwardly cast as a Lothario) and the production manager, Shelli (Carla Gugino)--who are supposed to have some chemistry between them but don’t seem to spark. ... Almost crushed beneath the farce are small moments that seem genuine.