Stick (Apple TV)
Owen Wilson has played sleazebags (Wedding Crashers, Starsky and Hutch), wide-eyed nomads (Midnight in Paris, Darjeerling Limited, Royal Tenenbaums) and the occasional sweet spot in between (You Me and Dupree, Internship), but this role feels like the culmination of the Owen Wilson persona.
Owen Wilson's character is a washed-out golf pro who is saddled by the end of his career, the comparative success of his nemesis (Timothy Olyphant), and more importantly, a divorce and the death of his son.
At the start of the series, he's runnings a series of hustles with his former caddy and confidante Mitts (Marc Maron).
The duo forms part of what becomes a found family of five, when Owen Wilson discovers a supremely talented young prodigy (Santiago, played by Peter Dager) and seeks to hitch his wagon to him. As Santi is a teenager, his mother (Mariano Treviano) comes along, and he eventually finds a horse whisperer of sorts in Lily Kaye. Kaye's character, Zero, is a typical zoomer who identifies as she/they and launches into poorly times speeches about safe spaces and hirearchy. In spite of this, she's not too divorced from reality to give a hug and accept money from her biggest cynic in Mitts.
If critical reactions are governed by political correctness as they were a few years ago, half the audience will find the treatment of Kaye's gender and zoomer views insensitive, while half will find it not harsh enough. Welcome to 2025!
But here's the beauty: The show delves into issues of generational gaps in the way that a feel-good movie ought to do: By showing people coming together rather than being divided. This is a heartwarming story about a family coming together with a lot of bumps in the road. Each character has at least one solid foil among the other members of the quintet, and evening out those differences is the bread and butter of the show. That, and it's a fun and sincere ride.
Chad Powers (Hulu)
Glenn Powell stars as a has-been quarterback who gets cancelled after pushing over wheelchair-bound kid in the wake of a game-losing fumble.
Powell's character, Russ Holliday, comes up with a scheme that seems highly implausible, even by the standards of someone who knows little to nothing about football (AKA me): Eight years later, throw on some prosthetic, adopt the name Chad Powers, and try out for a college team that he doesn't even attend classes at. The fact that the last part gets swept under the rug is a commentary on the tendency of big college programs to look the other way, it's still pretty weak.
With the assistance of the school mascot (Frankie Rodriguez) (who happens to be gay, so there's an attempt at diversity points here), Chad is able to make it through the tryouts.
The show tries to incorporate a number of elements -- a slow burn romance between Chad and the coach's assistant (Perry Mattfield); a classic sports story; a classic redemption story; a comedy of errors; a B-plot involving a father (Steve Zahn) learning to trust his daughter; an odd couple heart-filled relationship between Chad and the mascot -- but it hardly develops any of these threads.
Besides his relationship with the mascot, almost none of his other teammates is anything beyond an extra. As a result, a lot of team-centered stories are neglected. The romance angle is an incredibly slow burn, which adds a level of realism, but it's not enough to hold audience attention through the first half of the season
With Chad's relationship with the mascot character, the climate of the team is so difficult to gauge, that there's not even enough of a baseline to examine if their partnership/friendship is supposed to be seen as uplifting in a homophobic locker room, or passe in an era where there are already out players in the NFL.
There's also some level of generational trauma between Russ/Chad and his dad, but that doesn't get enough screentime to get us invested in that.
At the same time, things start clicking enough by the fourth episode that there's reason (at least for this viewer) to keep watching. Lots of shows have had poor starts and there's enough room to grow if some of these elements get more densely developed.

