Season 1 - 8 episodes (2017)
Season 2 - 8 episodes (2018)
Season 3 - 8 episodes (2019)
Season 4 - 8 episodes (2020)
Rent Brockmire on Amazon Video (paid link)
Created by: Joel Church-Cooper
Starring: Hank Azaria, Tyrel Jackson Williams, Amanda Peet, Hemky Madera, Katie Finneran, Tawny Newsome, J.K. Simmons, Richard Kind
Rated: TV-MA
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Plot
A famed Major League Baseball announcer suffers an embarrassing, very public meltdown live on-air after discovering his beloved wife's serial infidelity, deciding to reclaim his career and love life in a small town a decade later.
Verdict
I like the acerbic character more than I like the show itself. Most of the show is Brockmire getting himself in trouble due to his outsized ego and references to his sordid past. Brockmire doesn't seem to like anybody. That or he's offended them while drunk. Brockmire's stories an insults are on another level, but this is a show composed of one liners more so than an actual plot. With short episodes and seasons this can never build much of a story. Season four kicks the story into over drive, becoming a different show with ideas that unfortunately aren’t fully explored.
It depends.
Review
Hank Azaria developed the voice of Jim Brockmire by mimicing '70s baseball announcers. The character first debuted in a 2010 Funny or Die web series episode "A Legend in the Booth."
Brockmire is unfiltered and direct with wicked retorts. It's dark, making light of an alcoholic that clearly has problem that's also resigned himself to the fate of being a laughing stock. The comedy can be downright brutal though hilarious. With short episodes
and a short season there's not a lot of story. It's difficult to root
for a drunk, degenerate when the comedy is laughing at him not with him. His
best skill may be the ability to babble endlessly.
Season 1:
Disgraced baseball announcer Brockmire lost everything after a drunken tirade about his ex-wife's infidelity. A subsequent news conference only worsens his situation, leading to him leaving the country. He returns to the states for a minor league announcing job years later, but the job is much less than he expected. He learns he's still famous from his melt down, his name becoming a widely used meme. He's ashamed to realize he'll only be remembered for the worst moments of his life.
He takes the job Morristown Frackers owner Jules (Amanda Peet) offers anyway, assisted by a social media manager that's never watched baseball, Charles (Tyrel Jackson Williams).
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| S1E1: Amanda Peet, Hank Azaria play Jules James, Jim Brockmire |
Brockmire is stuck announcing for Morristown, unable to get anything better but desperate to get back to the major leagues. He starts a relationship with Jules that's a result of a winning street, alcohol, and dysfunction. She loves the team, facing an oil company that wants the club to fail so they can buy the land.
By the end of the season Jim manages to get a chance announcing for the big leagues before losing that again to a drunken tirade. Despite being a washed up joke, Jim still remains rather arrogant, a degenerate drunk working for a flailing team.
Season 2:
He's with a AAA team, and Charles has spun the Brockmire brand into something profitable. Brockmire is shocked at just how much they are making. The team is trying to decide between Jim and rival announcer Raj (Utkarsh Ambudkar) where Charles determines the fans like Brockmire best when drunk. He goes to great lengths to remain drunk while competing with Raj. Later in the season Jim realizes he does all his best work drunk and that's after an intervention.
The second season doesn't seem to build much more than the first, but he tries to reconcile the fact that his biggest flaws are what has propelled him this far in life.
Season 3:
The show really is a way to explore Jim's problems. In previous seasons Jim would likely say he doesn't have any. In this season he's working on it. A big turn around would be relationships you could describe as healthy. While he didn't want a partner in the booth, he mentors Gabby (Tawny Newsome) as she joins him in the booth and they become friends. A rivalry with fellow announcer Matt "The Batt" (J.K. Simmons) reaches a point of common ground. This season is big turn around for Jim.
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| S3E3: Tawny Newsome, Hank Azaria play Gabby Taylor, Jim Brockmire |
Season 4:
This season jumps ahead to 2030. Brockmire is elected as the baseball commissioner. It seems like an odd stretch, and that has to be part of the joke. I supposed baseball is the stand in for life changes.
This season takes a big swing by upending the plot of this show and satirizing the claim that baseball is dying by providing ridiculous adjustments at Brockmire's behest. He can't fix it.
This future is a dystopian sci-fi setting with a technology company taking over. I like the idea of tackling these issues, but this isn't a show long enough to string together anything all that coherent. To save baseball Jim and Jules begin negotiating with the same AI that already bought Charles's company.
Azaria does a great job in this, and it has some wicked one liners. He must have a lot of fun with the character. There's not much story, just Brockmire in ridiculous situations. Season four shifts the entire basis of the series. It's not as comedic as previous seasons, and it takes a big swing that doesn't quite make contact.
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