Ellie Kemper in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
Photo courtesy Netflix
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidtthe new comedy from Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, the tag-team behind 30 Rockwas originally supposed to air on NBC. The show does not have the most network-friendly premise: as it begins, the titular Kimmy (Ellie Kemper) is rescued from an underground bunker where she and three other women have been held against their will for nearly two decades by an apocalypse-minded cult leader. (And, Yes, weird s*x stuff happened, you nosy parker.) The deep onyx of this premise may explain why NBC ultimately passed on the series, leaving it to be snatched up by Netflix, which debuts the shows entire first season Friday. And yet whatever excuse NBC has for passinghey, we really dont want to air a show that references Josef Fritzl, Warren Jeffs, and the end of the world in its opening minute!is not good enough: The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt would instantly have been funnier than any show it currently has on the air.
Willa Paskin is Slates television critic.
Despite the darkness of its premise, Schmidts tone, like that of its heroine, is indomitably sunny: She is unbreakable, and dont you forget it. In the time it takes most sitcoms to set up a decent joke, Kimmy is rescued, has her plight auto-tuned, becomes famous as one of the Indiana Mole Women, and decides she is not going back to Indiana, where she will always be a victim. Instead, shell tough it out in New York City. With Kimmy Schmidt, Fey and Carlock may need some time to find their go-to themes and develop their supporting characters, but they still have complete mastery of their rhythm: cracks, asides, observations, and goofy references fly by so quickly, as a viewer you start to play a kind of reverse dodgeballdesperately doing whatever you can to get pegged by a punch line.
Kimmy, defiantly setting out into New York City, swiftly assembles for herself a supporting cast. She finds an apartment listed by Lillian (Carol Kane) and moves into a basement apartment with the gay Titus Andronicus (Tituss Burgess, who appeared on 30 Rock as reality TV personality DFwan, co-star on Queen of Jordan), a frustrated actor working Times Square in an off-brand superhero costume. To help pay Titus rent, she gets a job working as a nanny for a brat named Buckley, whose mother is the deeply narcissistic, but not entirely cruel, Jacqueline Voorhes (30 Rock vet Jane Krakowski. Presumably her new name is a shout out to Jackie Jormp-Jomp).*
Over the next six episodesall that was available to critics in advanceKimmy Schmidt both aligns itself with and separates itself from 30 Rock. It feels like 30 Rock. Theres the same deadpan, high-octane pacing, penchant for the completely silly, love of weird names, and passion for bizarre pop-culture reference. Kimmy shouts urethra! instead of eureka; The Babysitters Club Mystery: Dawn and the Surfer Ghost is an important plot point; the Afflecks are revealed to have a third brother, named Myron; a teenager gripes Im being bullied and Im not even fat; and Martin Short makes a cameo as Dr. Grant, which is pronounced Dr. Framph, because his own face has become so disfigured by plastic surgery, he can no longer speak clearly. (He is probably a work acquaintance of Dr. Spaceman.) As with 30 Rock, the desire to just quote lines back at your television or computer screen is irresistible.
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But Kimmy Schmidt has a bigger heart than 30 Rock. This is the irony of the shows premise: Despite being based on something far more macabre than the inner-workings of a major media conglomeration, Schmidt is more optimistic and less cynical than 30 Rock. If 30 Rock owes its very form to The Mary Tyler Moore Showhijinks at a TV stationKimmy Schmidt shares its spirit. Its a show in which an unstoppable young woman helps not only herself, but everyone around her by the sheer force of her good nature.
Yes, Kimmy is damaged in small ways and big. Shes never kissed a boy and she keeps says things like word up. Also, she has horrible recurring nightmares. Yet despite all of this, she remains a cheerful person whose positivity and gumption dont seem like just a cover-up for her pain. With her light-up sneakers and her can-do attitude, she faces optimistically approaches her future because, honestly, whats the worst thing that could happen there? As Kimmy says, The worst thing [already] happened in my own front yard. Unlike Liz Lemon, Kimmys best intentions are not constantly being derailed, undermined, and reconfigured by baritone conservatives, egomaniacs, crazies, politicos, and bureaucrats. Instead, more often than not, she is the force changing the zany oddballs assembled around her.
None of those oddballs are quite as vivid as 30 Rocks Jack Donaghy, Tracy Jordan, or Jenna Maroney. To be fair, who could be? But Kimmy Schmidt has a different structure from 30 Rock: Its protagonist, Kimmy, is both the shows straight man and also its ultimate, lovely little weirdo. Its Kimmy Schmidt, not every one around her, who is unbreakable, after all.
Correction, March 6, 2015: This review originally misspelled the last name of the 30 Rock characterJackie Jormp-Jomp. (Return.)
Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2015/03/unbreakable_kimmy_schmidt_review_netflix_s_new_tina_fey_comedy_may_be_the.html
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