Logo text

Despite a tremendous cast and ample, if sporadically utilized, charm, HBO ‘s Rooster suffers from a surfeit of loglines and an insufficiency of focus in deciding which one it wants to follow. It’s a show with an excess of underdeveloped identities, rather than a lack of identity, spackling over its poorly fused story elements with a sense of humor that’s sometimes appealing and frequently desperately hacky.

Rooster is the story of an introverted pulp fiction author ( Steve Carell ), who is nothing like his macho alter ego but gets the opportunity to change his life when he gets a job as writer-in-residence at a small New England college.

Rooster

The Bottom Line Still trying — too hard — to find itself.

Airdate: 10 p.m. Sunday, March 8 (HBO)

Cast: Steve Carell, Charly Clive, Phil Dunster, Danielle Deadwyler, Lauren Tsai and John C.…