Stream It Or Skip It?

Did you know that morning show hosts Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos own a lower-level Italian soccer team? If you’re a regular viewer of Live With Kelly and Mark, then you might. But ESPN’s latest documentary miniseries, Running With The Wolves, is hoping to make that fact more broadly known (and perhaps coattail on the success of a very-similar show.)

Opening Shot: Ripa and Consuelos interview fellow celebrity-soccer-club-owner Ryan Reynolds on their show, making the already-obvious parallel that the show is shooting for just that much more clear

The Gist: Running With The Wolves is a pretty straightforward documentary, and the structure feels very familiar if you’ve watched any other series following the rise and/or fall of a single team. In the pilot, we learn about the dire straits in which Campobasso FC found itself, and the lofty goals that Consuelos and Ripa have for their team. There’s a lot of game and practice footage, interspersed with series business meetings and explanatory talking-head shots. When the pilot starts, we’re a week away from training camp, and the leadership is looking to assemble a new team in Serie C, the third tier of the Italian soccer pyramid.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The–once again–extremely obvious parallel here is Welcome to Wrexham, FX’s documentary miniseries that’s followed (and quite probably spurred) the stunning rise of Welsh soccer club Wrexham AFC under the ownership of actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. There’s also shades of Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy as we learn about Molise, where Ripa and Consuelos’ team resides.

Our Take: The obvious question when coming into Running With the Wolves is: can it stand on its own, and not just ride coattails? It’s a fair question to ask, given the show’s extremely-obvious (and openly-acknowledged) similarity to the wildly-successful Welcome To Wrexham. Like that show, Running With the Wolves follows a pair of well-known North American celebrities as they swoop in to rescue a foundering low-level soccer club and hopefully bring it back up the ladder of success. There’s no denying that Wrexham has been a hit — the show draws viewers, and the club has been promoted three times in three seasons. It’s easy to see why you’d want to run that formula again somewhere else.

So, can lightning strike twice? Based on the pilot… yeah, it just might. I was skeptical going in, but there’s something undeniably charming in Running With the Wolves. The small-town Italian setting is a large part of why it works; we’re not just running back the Wrexham playbook here, we’re scratching a little Rick Steves itch, too. As soon as Mark Consuelos started raving about this under-visited region of Italy, I was opening Google Maps and daydreaming about a vacation to drink wine, eat pasta and maybe watch a soccer match.

Thankfully, the show is serious about following the club, and not just basking in the celebrity of its morning-show stars, Consuelos and Ripa. It’s obvious that this club is Consuelos’ baby; he shows a clear passion for the sport and for Italy. This might be a celebrity flight of fancy, but he’s doing the work, and it’s refreshingly-light on celebrity-couple-reality-show content, with Ripa popping in only occasionally to play the bemused spouse.

“Is it a midlife crisis?,” Ripa muses, “I don’t know… but if this is his midlife crisis, it’d almost be cheaper to have a mistress,” Ripa half-jokes, after reviewing the cost of obtaining a much-needed striker for the club. These segments are the least compelling part of the show, which thrives when it’s sticking to the pitch.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: The pilot does a good job of setting up the reality of owning a club at this level. The team loses its first game, the direction to success is unclear, and Consuelos has to have a difficult discussion with a likeable player about loaning down to a lower level in order to get playing time. There’s some glimmers of hope, though–a much-desired player gets on the club’s radar, and Kelly’s Italian is even improving.

Sleeper Star: There’s a handful of characters to pick from here, given the young players that Consuelos and his team are assessing for the upcoming campaign, and the club’s charmingly-gruff manager. My personal favorite, though, was Goffredo Iorio, the dedicated groundskeeper who brings this low-level club’s pitch up to Serie A standards with obsessive detail (and some classic Italian charm).

Most Pilot-y Line: “Soccer isn’t just a game in Italy. The whole country lives and breathes the sport,” Consuelos intones seriously, before helpfully laying out the pyramid in which Italian soccer is organized.

Our Call: STREAM IT. I was skeptical going in, but Running With the Wolves cares enough about the actual sport to make you care, too.

Scott Hines, publisher of the widely-beloved Action Cookbook Newsletter, is an architect, blogger and proficient internet user based in Louisville, Kentucky.