As long as it tightens the narrative and does not allow its main characters to cross the fourth wall so often, the new TV series winning Time. The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty will potentially be another winning move for HBO. It’s a dramatic (but humorous) recreation of the Los Angeles Lakers’ miraculous decade of the 1980s, during which the team won five National Basketball Association championships, including against their eternal rivals. , the Boston Celtics.
The world of basketball is definitely popular on broadcast platforms. After the success of the documentary miniseries The Last Dance (ESPN/Netflix), on Michael Jordan’s career and his final season with the Chicago Bulls, and the appearance last fall of Swagger (Apple TV+), fiction loosely inspired by the journey of Kevin Durant, HBO seizes the ball with this flashy biographical series adapting the book Showtime. Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980sby sports journalist Jeff Pearlman.
show time ! The word, repeated like a mantra by the characters in the series, also describes the style of play of the Lakers during this decade, a style based on speed, surprise and the spectacle offered to fans. Thus, the series is based on a particularly rich story, so captivating are the main actors in this sports story – we could have developed television projects on the lives of four or five of the protagonists.
History which, after 8 of the 10 episodes presented to the media, can be summed up as follows: a wealthy real estate investor, Jerry Buss, interpreted with all the excessiveness that suits him by a famous John C. Reilly, pays himself in 1979 for the Lakers (as well as local NHL team, the Kings, not mentioned in the series) and their home, the Forum. He will insist on drafting the jovial and talented rookie Earvin “Magic” Johnson Jr. (played by the equally smiling Quincy Isaiah), rather than his rival Larry Bird (Sean Patrick Small), an equally imposing sports talent acquired by the Celtics . The move will revitalize the team first on a sporting level, as Johnson will revive veteran Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Solomon Hughes), then on a branding level, as Buss aims to dust off the ways of the NBA.
Thus, the very rhythmic narrative of Winning Time finds its springs in the antagonisms between its many characters. Jerry Buss puffing out his chest in front of Red Auerbach, the almighty head coach of the Boston Celtics, who lead the way in the league. The young Magic against new teammate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a low-key giant disillusioned with the sports machine that swallowed him. Jeanie (Hadley Robinson), the daughter of Jerry Buss, who tries to find her place in the administration of the team and whose ideas to rejuvenate the sports spectacle initially come up against the rigidity of Claire Rothman (Gaby Hoffmann). And this, not to mention the coaches who will succeed at the head of the team, a particularly captivating narrative.
Added to this are the mores of the time, underscored with great fanfare by old-fashioned costumes, sex scenes and chain-roasted cigarettes, all set to a soundtrack firmly rooted in its disco-funk era (the composer and jazz pianist Robert Glasper, however, signs the original music). Entertaining, but often superficial (until some drama comes to disturb the destiny of the team), Winning Time is an excessive series, both in terms of narration and visually, with its occasional grainy scenes like old VHS tape. The creators of the series, Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht, have ensured that each episode, of about fifty minutes, ends with an effective suspense which immediately makes the public want to devour the next one. Unfortunately, HBO opted for a weekly broadcast schedule rather than offering all 10 episodes of this series all at once, which should see a sequel.