"Step Right Up" is the first episode of Reboot (2022).
Hannah, a writer whose filmmaking debut made waves at SXSW, successfully pitches a revival of her favorite childhood sitcom Step Right Up. The old cast (White-Dwarf Starlet Reed Sterling, duchess Bree Marie Jensen, troubled comedian Clay Barber, and child star turned C-list teen actor Zack Johnson) all return, excited by the new script and the stable career prospect. However, the original showrunner Gordon Gelman returns to set, revealing he still owns the rights. Hannah refuses to work with him and storms off.
Worried that Gordon's version of the show won't benefit them, the actors visit Hannah and learn that Gordon is her father who abandoned her and based Step Right Up on his experiences with his second family. They promise to back her vision and she returns to the show.
Tropes:
- Chekhov's Skill: Reed is introduced with a terrible audition where he plays a gang member. He later uses that exact same audition to play tough guy on Gordon.
- Damned by Faint Praise: Hannah has glowing things to say about Reed's acting and Clay's standup, but to Zack, she can only say that her little cousin might have seen some of his movies.
- Dark Secret: Invoked. Hannah writes a "dark secret" for Reed's character Lawrence, which gets him excited about the script. Said "dark secret" is revealed to be a daughter from a previous relationship.
- Exact Words: When Bree divorces her husband, she figures she can at least get a good settlement out of it under "The Kettle System" which she assumes is named after some lawyer. It turns out that it's a law of the country saying a divorced woman can only leave with what she can fit into a kettle, meaning Bree is flat broke.
- First-Episode Twist: At first, the pilot indicates Hannah wants to reboot the show just because she was a fan and is upset at Gordon returning as he's ignoring her new vision for it. But the pilot ends with the revelation Hannah is mad because she's Gordon's daughter who he abandoned at the age of seven and created this entire show about his new step-family while never mentioning her. Thus, she wanted to tell "her" story and upset her dad is once more trying to make it about his own life.
- Reboot Snark: In the opening scene, the Hulu exec is reluctant to greenlight Hannah's pitch to reboot Step Right Up. His team rattles off a laundry list of shows that got remade/rebooted/revived note . He admits the trend makes him feel safe about greenlighting the show.Daniel: What the hell, let's remake something original.
- Wham Line: At the end of the first episode, the cast tries to talk Hannah into coming back for the show and work with Gordon, insisting "he's not so bad once you get to know him." Hannah's response makes it clear that the rest of the show will be part-Family Drama:Hannah: Oh, I got to know him pretty well for about seven years until he dropped me off at ballet class one time and he started flirting with my super-skinny teacher. And then he moved in with her and her super-creepy son Seth. And then he created a television show all about his new step-family that acted like his daughter never existed.
Reed: Are you... telling us... Gordon is your father?
