The new NBC sitcom Young Rock jumps around four different time periods in the life of its producer and star, professional fighter who became action hero Dwayne Johnson, also known as The Rock. In 1982, he is a 10-year-old boy who meets Dewey (played by Adrian Groulx), who lives in Hawaii with his fighter father Rocky (Joseph Lee Anderson) and aspiring mother singer Ata (Stacey Leilua). In 1987, he is a huge teenager (played by Bradley Constant) in Pennsylvania, whose colleagues are convinced that he is a secret agent. In 1990, he is a freshman football player at the University of Miami (played by Uli Latukefu) trying to convert his size and athletic ability into a career. And in 2032, played by Johnson himself, he is running for president and recalling crucial moments in his childhood that helped him become the People’s Champion.
Jumping in time is in fashion on TV today, in dramas like Westworld for docuseries like The last dance. Still, four different seasons are difficult to reconcile in the space of a half-hour broadcast comedy. After a busy pilot episode that tries to give equal time to the many different faces of The Rock – and does not always succeed in that balance – the other episodes that NBC provided for review focus on just one of its three Young Rocks, along with comments adult Dwayne Johnson.
But where Johnson is one of the few universally loved celebrities – and genuine movie stars – we have today, he may be too much of an ingredient for his own autobiographical series, which tends to work best when he focuses on one of his title character incarnations. .
The main creative voice here is Nahnatchka Khan, exploring nostalgic territory in the vein of his last sitcom, ABC Fresh off the boat. This program was also inspired by the life of one of its producers, author Eddie Huang, who narrated the adventures of his young alter ego for a few seasons. When Huang gave up due to creative differences with Khan and others, FOTB he abandoned the narration altogether, trusting that his characters were well enough at that point not to require additional help or explanation.
Johnson proves to be useful in Young Rock pilot, which is framed as an interview that he’s doing FOTB Randall Park, who is playing himself, working as a TV news anchor in 2032. The adult Johnson quickly establishes the players and the stakes in each season, as well as the main theme of the series. Rocky Johnson reminds little Dewey that every fighter needs to find and work his own trick, and politician Dwayne tells Park that his own trick turned out to be simple: “Be me”.
That was how Johnson presented himself throughout his career as an artist. Its genuine and realistic nature is the key to its appeal. We believe that what you see is what you get from it, even if it is built in fantastic proportions, like an aircraft carrier. Young Rock intends to be a memoir of all faults – Rocky Johnson is shown as a shy degree of a swindler, and teenager Dwayne steals and tells many lies to impress a girl he likes – but the 2032 guy is so Holy is that the framing device begins to look less like a parody of politics than the subliminal launch of Johnson’s real political career.
And once Young Rock settles in an era by episode, the presence of the real Rock proves more of a distraction than anything else. Khan and his collaborators did such an effective job building the extensive Johnson family – including actors playing a series of future WWF / WWE stars – that the series is most effective and engaging when it comes to staying with them. The sixth episode, entitled “My Day With Andre”, is a hot and bittersweet tale about the lessons that Dewey and Andre the Giant (Matthew Willig) have to teach each other and about Rocky’s precarious position on the local wrestling circuit professional run by his mother-in-law Lia (Ana Tuisila). The 2032 sequences, with candidate Johnson announcing his running mate, just take a while away from what’s working so well in the scenes set 50 years earlier.
Like Fresh off the boat, Young Rock it’s not very funny at first, but it looks like the laughter will get bigger the better we get to know the characters. The fact that there are so many actors playing our hero, not to mention the different supporting cast in each era, complicates things. The real Dwayne Johnson is the name and face that should attract viewers to watch these other versions of him, but the best thing he can do for his younger selves may be to step out of the ring for a while to give us more time to smell what these other rocks are cooking.
Young Rock debuts on February 16 on NBC. I saw the first, second and sixth episodes.