Lucky Hank (2023)TV series

One of the funniest American contributions to the tradition of the campus novel is Richard Russo’s Straight Man (1997), which follows the middle-aged English professor William Henry Deveraux Jr. during a particularly eventful week at West Central Pennsylvania University (not a real school) in Railton, Pa. (not a real town). An adaptation of Russo’s work is airing on AMC, but because no network executive in his left mind would greenlight a show called Straight Man—you might as well pitch Cisgender Patriarch, even if Russo’s title refers to the stiff in a comedy routine—it’s called Lucky Hank. (The new title is an apt homage to Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim, the ne plus ultra of academic comedies.) Although it’s an enjoyable show with many excellent performances, six episodes into...