By Valerie Milano
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 3/12/23 – Viewers are returning back to college Spring 2023 for the premier of the anticipated AMC show Lucky Hank. Highlighting the ebbs and flows and the ‘important to you’ office politics working Americans can find themselves enveloped in, Lucky Hank takes a stab at the dichotomy of going through midlife crises’ in a profession that is less than glamorous: a faculty member of an underfunded university in Philadelphia, PA.
Based on the Richard Russo novel Straight Man, Bob Odenkirk colorfully portrays the attempts of a healthy work life balance of Hank Devereaux as he navigates being Chair of the English Department, his ‘has been’ author status, and family life. Notable Executive Producer of The Office, Lucky Hank Showrunner Paul Lieberstein, uncovers how the show came to be during the AMC Network CTAM Press Tour. Liberstein denotes, “I was really interested in the world, and I was looking to develop something in the university. And part of it came from this idea after The Office that I’d like to do this with smarter people maybe. Like, what if everyone was kind of like the people I know, you know? To take a look at that kind of workplace. And at the same time, I loved the university. And I love this idea about tenure where you are trapped in success. You can’t leave that job. So, it just allows people to kind of behave very badly in a semi-protected way. So, it really felt like this was a great opportunity. And for some reason, television kind of stayed away from the university. And I think, really, not understanding just how relatable it is and just how much of a workplace it is.”
The audience can expect to feel downright rejuvenated after experiencing the witty internal dialogue of the protagonist and entertaining character development as they become familiarized with the unique personalities in Lucky Hank. The multifaceted storyline can be compared to the various niche communities’ humans belong to and the specific day to day happenings of those communities. Executive producer Mark Johnson reveals, “what I love about this world is its sort of — it has a parallel with those of us in show business. And we have to constantly fight the fact that we’re, you know, start to feel self-important, and which of course we’re, we’re not, and we have to put everything in perspective. And in the academic world, everything is life and death, everything is operatic, and, you know, are you going to get tenure, and, you know, who’s doing what, and how come he, his classes has more people than her class, whatever, whatever it is. And so they’re constantly infighting over seemingly the most important things in the world, and everybody outside the academic world, which is 99.7%, we don’t care. It doesn’t matter. And, and it’s, it’s wonderful to realize, as I said, once again, all of us have to be really careful and check, check ourselves. And there’s something about just the, both the comedy and sort of the, the heartbreak of the academic world.”
Everyman Hank Devereaux faces the hilarious pangs of his midlife crisis alongside his animated colleagues in Lucky Hank only on AMC on March 19th, 2023. Please check local listings for showtimes.