When I heard Sebastian Maniscalco was going to be playing an old-school bookmaker who takes wagers over the phone in the Max Original comedy series “Bookie,” I thought it be might be a period piece, given you can bet on sports these days just by downloading an app, as you might have gleaned from any of the kabillion advertising spots they run on TV and the zillions of sponsored features in which analysts and former players share their picks to beat the spread.
But they worked around that by setting the show in Los Angeles, as California has yet to legalize online gambling. It’s probably only a matter of time before that changes, which only adds to the dark humor and the sense of impending doom in a series that shows terrific promise in the pilot episode. Maniscalco is in his comfort zone playing a wisenheimer bookie, and series creators Chuck Lorre and Nick Bakay (“Two and a Half Men,” “The Kominsky Method,” “Young Sheldon”) are surehanded veterans when it comes to crafting situation comedy.
