As Disney Plus is picking up steam, new programming is a must to entice new viewers. One of such new shows building momentum on the streaming platform is Big Shot, starring John Stamos as a high school basketball coach. With charm and a stellar cast, the budding streaming service has a second hit sports show after The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, that is headed into the final stretch.
Big Shot follows coach Marvyn Korn, played by John Stamos, a former NCAA basketball coach who won multiple championship coaching the men’s team. During one of the games his temper results in an ejection, and Marvyn becomes a leper in the basketball community after he hits one referee with a chair. But when a rich father decides to get the coach for his daughter’s high school, he is forced to train girls in an elite California school.
John Stamos leads the show as Marvyn and there are a host of the girls who are quippy, smart, and interesting. All of that combined, the show is a perfect dose of optimism and happiness that we really need in our lives. Disney has been making good sports movies for a while now, but now they are forging a crown for themselves as fiction sports TV champions.
Big Shot on Disney Plus should be Your Next Stream
High school girls basketball is an underrepresented television segment and Disney Plus is filling the void with an effective drama/comedy. With a story that touches on the idea of sports and money involved in the games, to name reputation trumping years of toiling in the system for a shot. The show plays with some heavy themes with somewhat deft hands.
For a man to deal with teenage girls of today’s generation seems like a difficult task and the early growing pains are evident in the first episode. The teachers don’t want him there, the players are not happy about any of it, and Marvyn is even more miserable than all of them seeing where his career has ended up.
Also, the idea of a rich father leveraging his donation to the school to get a controversial coach to bring out the best in his daughter is also a recurring theme in the first few episodes. While we do not think any more deep dive will happen into that story thread, Big Shot is at least not scared at pulling on some controversial private/rich school practices.
In the third episode of Big Shot there is also a question of who deserves to be the coach of the team. Assistant coach Holly Barrett is has been with the team for a long time but she was passed over for the job of head coach, instead a controversial and volatile man getting the job for his past accomplishments. It was nice that Marvyn does not brush off all the allegation from the student counselor off hand, he is receptive of the idea.
But the show also does a good job in emphasizing the impact Marvyn can have on the girls. For Destiny Winters, the coach is almost a father figure, for Louise Gruzinsky he is a someone trying to better her game, for Mouse he is someone to impress with her skills. All of the girls are getting a complete education for a man with anger issues and ego the size of Texas and even he seems to be turning.
While his relationship with the girls in the team is improving, Marvyn Korn as a father to a teenage daughter is a whole different thing. Big Shot‘s first few episodes show Emma dealing with her father’s highs and lows and it seems Marvyn‘s firing was an impactful moment in her social life. In the third episode we see Marvyn Korn as a father who is afraid of his daughter and how he is going to come off to her.
Emma is a good kid who just wants to be with her father and it seems living with him will do the trick for their relationship. It is nice to see that the coach is show as a vulnerable and volatile figure in the show. Most of the times sports coach are portrayed as teachers who bring structure to he life of the players, but here the coach and the players are helping one another.
Recently Ben Affleck‘s vehicle The Way Back took the same formula to critical success. Ben’s character was way more flawed than John Stamos’ Marvyn Korn, but the idea is the same, kids coming to the rescue of an adult who appears to have lost some perspective. We are certain that the inspiring coach moment will arrive soon enough in Big Shot, it is however nice that they are taking their sweet time to get to that point, letting us fall in love with everyone, once episode at a time.
And with only 3 episodes released to date, there is time for you to catch up and enjoy your Friday’s with some magical moments of Big Shot. The show premiered on Disney Plus last month; with seven episodes in the first season, you better get streaming.
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Disney Plus Hot Shot John Stamos
Last modified: May 2, 2021
