After Drawing 14M Viewers, NBC’s Brilliant Hit Series Officially Returns Monday
Amanda M. Castro is a Network TV writer at Collider and a New York–based journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek, where she is an Associate Editor, and The U.S. Sun, where she previously served as a Senior Consumer Reporter.
She specializes in network television coverage, delivering sharp, thoughtful analysis of long-running procedural hits and ambitious new dramas across broadcast TV. At Collider, Amanda explores character arcs, storytelling trends, and the cultural impact of network series that keep audiences tuning in week after week.
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Amanda is bilingual and holds a degree in Communication, Film, and Media Studies from the University of New Haven.
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At one point, NBC seemed to have lost its magic in sitcoms. The company that brought you The Office, Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock, and The Good Place spent years trying to find another comedy to fill that corner of the television landscape. Then Tracy Morgan showed up with a documentary crew, a gambling scandal, and a huge collection of memorabilia depicting his life; he didn't leave the network for other options.
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins premiered in January 2026 and quickly became one of the year's best sitcoms. Created by Robert Carlock and Sam Means, the sitcom follows Reggie Dinkins (Morgan), a successful New York Jets player who lost everything because of a gambling scandal. Years later, he tries to restore his reputation and hopes to win back the good graces of fans, his family, and, if possible, the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Meanwhile, Arthur Tobin (Daniel Radcliffe), a disgraced documentary filmmaker, films that comeback attempt because he needs a career resurrection of his own.
Reggie wants a flattering portrait that will restore his image, and at least initially, Arthur wants to make something more honest. Naturally, putting those two men in the same room is less a recipe for a thoughtful documentary than a recipe for disaster. That disaster turned out to be a huge success for NBC, with the sitcom's January premiere drawing more than 14 million viewers across platforms. Now, with Season 2 returning Monday, November 2, Reggie is getting another shot at a comeback, whether he deserves one or not.
'The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins' Makes the Mockumentary Feel Fresh Again
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins is primarily a sports comedy that masquerades as a mockumentary, following a man who desperately tries to control his own story. Reggie contacts Arthur and has him make a documentary about his life and career, hoping the outcome will convince people he deserves a chance at a comeback.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Iconic Fandom Should You Join? Harry Potter · Lord of the Rings · Star Wars · Star Trek
Eight honest questions about how you actually are: what you put on when you need cheering up, how deep you go into the things you love, what you argue about, what you keep on your shelf. Answer them and we will tell you where you belong. Four of the biggest fandoms on earth are taking new members, and they could not be more different from one another.
⚡Harry Potter(Wizarding World)
💍Lord of the Rings(Middle-earth)
⚔️Star Wars(A Galaxy Far Away)
🖖Star Trek(The Final Frontier)
01
What do you put on when you need cheering up? Nobody is brave about this one.
02
How deep do you go into something you love? There is no shallow end here, only different deep ends.
03
What do you and your friends actually argue about? Every fandom has one argument it has been having for years.
04
How do you feel about a room full of strangers? Every one of these comes with a very big room.
05
Where would you rather spend a week? Pick on instinct rather than on budget.
06
What do you believe about people, mostly? All four of these stories have an answer, and they disagree.
07
What is actually on your shelf? Look over at it before you answer.
08
What do you actually want from a story? Eight questions in, this is the one that picks your fandom.
Membership Confirmed Your Fandom Is…
Four of the largest communities on the planet, and four completely different reasons to belong to one. Here is yours, what it would give you, and the argument you would be having within a week.
Harry Potter
You belong to the fandom that is really about comfort. Hogwarts works on people because it is a place rather than a plot, and the pull is not the wizard war so much as the corridors, the food, the weather and the sense that somebody is expecting you.
- You are drawn to belonging, which is why this fandom sorted itself into houses within about five minutes and has never stopped.
- This is the most social of the four, and the one most likely to know which type every single person in your life would be.
- The books are built to be reread rather than analysed, and rereading is exactly what you do with things you love.
- The new HBO series is bringing the whole thing back one book at a time, which means the arguments are about to start all over again.
Lord of the Rings
You belong to the deepest fandom on this list, the one where somebody has always read further than you and is quietly delighted to say so. Middle-earth rewards patience more than any other world in popular culture.
- You like the sense that the story you are reading is only the visible part of something enormous, which is precisely how Tolkien built it.
- This fandom takes adaptation seriously to a degree that other fandoms find slightly alarming, and it has good reasons for that.
- Your favourite thing about the books is probably the bit that is not action at all, which is the walking, the songs and the long goodbyes.
- Nobody here thinks heroism belongs to the powerful, and the whole story exists to make that argument.
Star Wars
You belong to the loudest and largest tent of the four, the one where three generations are all watching the same thing and none of them agree about any of it. That disagreement is not a flaw in this fandom, it is the main activity.
- You want something you can share with absolutely everybody, from a six year old to a grandparent, and this is the only one on the list that really does that.
- Nobody argues like Star Wars fans argue, and the argument has been running since roughly 1980 with no sign of resolution.
- The pull here is sensory before it is narrative, since it is the sound design, the score and the look of a used and dented galaxy.
- You would be first in the queue, in costume, with strong opinions and a genuinely good time.
Star Trek
You belong to the thinking fandom, the one that turns up for the argument rather than the explosion. Trek has always been a series of ethical problems in space, and the people who love it love being asked what they would have done.
- You are an optimist in a way that is currently unfashionable, and this is the only major franchise still willing to say the future might be better.
- The best episodes are the ones where nobody fires anything, which is a sentence that makes perfect sense to this fandom and to nobody else.
- Starfleet Academy brought the franchise back to a classroom in 2026, which is appropriate, because Trek has always been a bit of a seminar.
- You would want the conversation afterwards more than the episode itself, and here you will always find somebody willing to have it.
The irony is that Reggie isn't very interested in being objectively documented. He wants six episodes of hero worship, preferably with flattering angles and very little discussion of the whole gambling scandal that ended his NFL career. Arthur, meanwhile, is supposed to be the impartial filmmaker, but his own career implosion leaves him with plenty of baggage.
The documentary setup also gives the sitcom a useful excuse to let its characters behave as though they have known one another forever. Erika Alexander plays Monica, Reggie’s ex-wife and business manager, who is arguably more invested in rebuilding his career than he is. Bobby Moynihan plays Rusty, Reggie’s former teammate and best friend, while Precious Way plays Brina, Reggie’s fiancée. Jalyn Hall rounds out the central family dynamic as Carmelo, Reggie and Monica’s teenage son.
Morgan has spent decades proving that he can be one of television’s most unpredictable comic performers. He got Tracy Jordan from 30 Rock, a more ludicrous, exaggerated version of his own tumultuous image, but Reggie Dinkins is another character who can be fun, vain, and totally lovable at the same time.
Carlock, the creator of 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, seems to know how to build a comedy around Morgan without creating Tracy Jordan, and unlike him, Reggie isn't cartoonish. He made a big mistake that cost him everything, and now he has no idea how to live with what is left of him. Beneath the jokes about athletes, documentary filmmaking, celebrity culture, and Reggie’s enormous ego is a story about second chances. Everyone in the show is trying to recover something they lost, whether that is a career, a relationship, public respect, or simply a sense of direction.
As for Radcliffe, he might be the show’s secret weapon. Arthur is neurotic, pretentious, and increasingly unable to remain an impartial observer of the Dinkins family. Radcliffe plays that discomfort beautifully, giving the mockumentary format a twist: The person holding the camera is just as much a mess as the people in front of it.
NBC's Biggest New Comedy Success Has Plenty Left To Prove
The gamble on Reggie Dinkins paid off quickly. Its January premiere aired immediately after NBC’s NFL divisional playoff coverage and drew 5.8 million viewers, with a 1.4 rating among adults 18-49. It became the most-watched comedy episode of the 2025-26 broadcast season at the time and NBC’s biggest comedy debut in three years.
The series also found strong support from critics. At present, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 38 reviews. With a Metacritic score of 76, it has received favorable reviews. According to TheWrap, the January 18 premiere alone reached more than 14 million viewers across its cumulative audience, including 5.8 million who watched its initial NBC broadcast. The series also finished as the highest-rated new comedy among adults 18–49 for the 2025–26 broadcast season.
NBC renewed The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins for a second season in May, and the new episodes are scheduled to premiere this Monday, November 2, 2026. Season 2 will pick up after the first season’s revelation that Carmelo is secretly dating the daughter of Reggie’s football nemesis, Jerry Basmati (Craig Robinson), which is likely to create a fresh headache for Reggie, especially given how much energy he's already spent trying to repair his relationship with Jerry.
The larger story, however, remains redemption. Carlock and Means have indicated that Season 2 will continue exploring that theme across the entire ensemble rather than treating Reggie as the only character in need of a second chance. Reggie’s Hall of Fame ambitions aren’t disappearing either, meaning his comeback remains very much a work in progress.
There is also the matter of Arthur’s documentary. After an entire first season of trying to make the film, he still hasn’t managed to get it made. Season 2 will continue playing with that increasingly absurd premise, with the writers even discussing a Thanksgiving episode now that the series is returning in the fall.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.