Hoops Season 1 Review

August 22, 2020 at 4:06am
By Jason Stettner

This is a Netflix Original animated series that follows one very foul-mouthed high school basketball coach as he tries to deal with various problems. This coach is voiced by Jake Johnson, he was alright in performing the various one note situations that pop up. It’s one of those experiences where they’re using vulgar language to an excessive amount. Not the type that’s humorous, but to the degree that’s just purely over the top.

I’m usually all for excessive language, but it’s not used in a very effective way here. On top of that, with this being a comedy it’s not really all that funny. It largely misses the mark on the laughs, while also having a rather drab narrative. It’s just a horribly bad person that’s trying to get his loser team to win. He doesn’t care how this happens, and works through some over the top schemes to get that done.

There are other characters involved, and weird situations all around in regards to how the characters interact with one another. There really wasn’t much of a cohesive story here, just some events that went along. It ended with a weird note, and I’m not sure where they could take this that would interest me enough to watch more of it if another season were to show up down the road.

With this being animated, the animation was also rather bland. It definitely looks familiar to what I’ve seen prior on Netflix, just not too detailed. Very simple backdrops, environments and characters in general.

That’s fine I suppose, I just didn’t find any of the areas in the series to really be all that appealing. It just seems like a lower budget offering, so the animation really wasn’t at all special here. It served its purpose, but didn’t excel in any way. The voice acting was fine, there weren’t too many deep elements to that aspect though.

I guess they were going for shock value with the quantity of foul language used, and it felt like a waste. It’s basically just swearing a ton, because they can. It didn’t serve the comedy, or story and that made a lot of this very awkward to watch.

The Conclusion

Hoops Season 1 is just a rather bad time, it fails at being a comedy and is far too centered on trying to provide some shock value through its use of language. I typically never care about this aspect when I’m watching content, but it was just overused and wasted here. I’m not sure what they were going for with this adult cartoon, but it didn’t hit the mark.

It was just a bunch of random stories loosely thrown together for a season of sorts. It’s nothing too interesting, and rather bland. That style is carried across the experience. From the generic looking animation style, to the ok voice work and the awkward story as well. This one just doesn’t hit the mark, and it’s hard to really talk about as it was fairly forgettable.

It didn’t bring the laughs like I had hoped it would. I think the material is prime for some good jokes, and it just didn’t work out in that way. It’s hard to get behind any of the characters, or care for any of them throughout the season. I’m not really sure who the audience is for this one. Whatever the case, it didn’t hit the mark for me and it wasn’t the best of watches.

Hoops Season 1 Review at Home with Streamed Viewing
Screening was Provided by Netflix

Rating Overall: 4.0