The Culture
Reviews Kemper radiates good cheer in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, co-produced by Fey TELEVISION
Must-Stream TV NetïŹix rescues Tina Feyâs new show from NBC By James Poniewozik
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The deal was a sad statement about the potential for comedy at the new NBC. (Earlier last year, the network canceled the inventive Community, which will stream its sixth season on Yahoo starting March 17.) But it was probably the best thing possible for the delightful, strange Kimmy, which could have easily, quickly died on network TV. NetïŹix committed to two full seasons of the show before the ïŹrst even premiered. The pilot opens in an underground bunker, where Kimmy Schmidt (Kemper) is decorating a Christmas tree. Sheâs celebrated the holiday with the same three women since the â90s, when she was 14 and was kidnapped by an Indiana cult leader who claimed to be saving them from a nuclear apocalypse. After a SWAT team raids the bunker, the âMole Womenâ are whisked to Manhattan for a Today
show interview (a relic of cross-promoobsessed NBC), after which Kimmy ïŹnds herself on the street, trying to ïŹgure out what to do with her life. She stumbles across a roommate share with broke actor Titus (30 Rockâs Tituss Burgess) and eccentric landlady Lillan (sitcom legend Carol Kane). Alien in every way and still 14 at heart, Kimmy sets out to explore the terrae incognitae of the big city, the 2010s and adulthood. Kemper and Kimmy are one of TVâs most natural matches of actor and character since Lou Ferrigno became the Hulk. Sheâs a terriïŹc physical comic and contagiously joyous, as if Lucille Ball had a baby with a rainbow. Kimmy knows almost nothing about todayâs world, which means she doesnât know enough to be jaded about it. When she spies a costume in the corner of Titusâ apartmentâhis day
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when they prepare the in-memoriam reel for the next Emmy Awards, letâs hope the Academy sets aside some space for NBCâs Thursday-night comedy block, God rest its soul. It was born in 1981, when the network aired the ïŹrst in a set of comedy lineups that would eventually include Cheers, The Cosby Show, Seinfeld, Friends, The OfïŹce and many more TV legends. It died of old age and neglect on Jan. 22, 2015, with the little-mourned expirations of Bad Judge and A to Z. (Parks and Recreation outlived its cohort slightly, ending its days in February, exiled to Tuesdays.) It is survived by the nightâs current occupants, espionage dramas Allegiance and The Blacklist, as well as The Slap, the bourgeois-parentingangst miniseries that is a comedy only unintentionally. NBC euthanized its comedy block, but it is not solely guilty. The Must-See-TV brand once promised a kind of sitcom that was both sophisticated and popular. But as cable outlets for niche comedy multiplied, audiences shrank. The ïŹnale of the urbane, witty Cheers drew over 80 million viewers; the ïŹnale of the urbane, witty 30 Rock, not quite 5 million. The ïŹrst season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which premieres March 6 on NetïŹix, might have aired on NBCâs Thursday in a distant eraâlike last spring, when the network ïŹrst picked up the comedy, about an escapee from a doomsday cult making a new life in New York City. It had a Must-See Thursday pedigree, with 30 Rockâs Tina Fey and Robert Carlock as co-creators. It had a Must-See Thursday star, Ellie Kemper of The OfïŹce. But by 2015, there was no Must-See Thursday to schedule it on. So NBC, whose parent company produces Kimmy, essentially precanceled the show and sold it to the streaming service.
