unbreakable kimmy schmidt netflix television show

this is really good & funny fyi

martin short for the win.

i laughed so hard watching this last night. i thought i might die. this was after the medicinal brownie.

On ep 2 right now, enjoying it even though she disturbingly reminds me of a cartoon version of my college girlfriend

I watched the first 5 last night and the remaining 8 this afternoon. Except for a few dicey race (racist?) gags in the middle run of episodes, I thought it was uniformly great. Agree with whoever it was that said in the Netflix thread that Ellie Kemper's silly face making ability is one of the show's secret weapons. So is Martin Short's cameo and so is Carol Kane's every time she's in a scene. Tituss Burgess is amazing too, and I didn't piece together that he played D'Fwan on 30 Rock until I looked at imdb a minute ago.

martin short is amazing in this. and it has tina fey's fingerprints all over it which is really important to me because they stopped making 30 rock episodes three years ago.

apparentlt nbc basically gave this show away because it wouldn't appeal to a general enough market (a la modern family or big bang theory) and Netflix picked it up.

watched the first two eps, am baffled by the positive reaction (here and elsewhere). laughed maybe three times, whole thing just felt forced/didn't click. i can see what they're trying to do i guess. maybe i just had a really hard time getting past the broken premise. someone locked up underground by an abusive cult leader for half their lives.... funny? and they keep referring back to it with little flashbacks and it's just so uncomfortable and horrible and traumatic to think about. but she's perky! ho ho ho! just lost on me. if it was just the setup to a fish-out-of-water story that doesn't matter later, i guess, fine, but the fish-out-of-water stuff seemed so stock.

but more than anything it just felt kind of sluggish in the editing. lingering for a second on a not-that-funny joke. first shot in the scene pauses oddly so we can see how much money they spent on the sets and props i guess. not funny-long, just kinda off.

the rich lady boss had some good moments. i liked the babysitter's club joke, though setting it up felt effortful. basically i just felt the whole thing was underwritten, like they had some very broad characters in mind, and actors to play them, and figure if you put these people in a room together, it'll write itself! well, no. also seemed just kinda outta touch or like it's been in development hell too long. an autotune the news joke? and it's the theme song? or like her outfits are supposed to jump out as dated or childlike and people think she looks ridiculous? but... in real life this would kinda look normal, right? if anything the gag could've been people thinking she's really fashion-forward and that gets her in over her head in situations where she has the look but not the protocol? just riffing here but it stuck out to me as this weird "i guess the writers don't get out very much anymore."

disclaimer: i have seen maybe half an episode of thirty rock, plus short clips posted to ilx, i thought they were funny but maybe i'm missing out on some whole new genre of sitcom or something.

episode three is where things get really good. the first two episodes aren't that great.

hmmm.... ever since george lucas i've had a hard time swallowing that line, though i believe you're sincere.

Most sitcoms take a little while to work it out.

I've watched 8 eps I think? Breezy and enjoyable but not super impactful for me, then again I was never a 30 Rock devotee and several aspects of this (the comic rhythms, the scoring, Krakowski) are more or less exactly the same.

I've only seen the first episode, but I was pretty much sold the moment I saw the headline: 'WHITE WOMEN FOUND (Hispanic woman also found)'

I thought the whole thing was smart, funny and moved at a pretty fast pace, at least for a pilot, which was, after all, developed for network. Season 2 of this could be pretty great, once they know they're on streaming.

monkey in a zoo joke in episode three is the funniest thing i've heard in a long time. any show that can come up with that line gets my vote.

maybe just skip to the martin short episode if you didn't like the first two.

i definitely had a problem with the theme song at first - so hokey! - but i got used to it.

Carol Kane's line about the high heels "You KNOW a man invented those...because women have never invented anything" was my favorite bait-and-switch punchline of the entire season.

I like it but I don't think I could stand to be around someone as perky as kimmy for more than about two minutes irl

Dr casino I totally get your quease. I read an earlier version of the pilot script back when the show was named TOOKEN and it was considerably more of an issue. Most of the changes made involved putting the focus on Kimmy's strength rather than the acts done to her (a shift seen right in the title), so the idea is not that we're laughing at her circumstances but impressed by her courage. The subject matter is still a clear hurdle, and if kemper's performance doesn't push you through I get it, but I also get what they're going for message-wise, which is enduring despite trauma, and the urge to not let it define you.

Only 2 episodes in but I think the cast is great and yeah I missed those 30 rock rhythms and joke constructions.

'Urethra!'

there is even a handy article about the trauma thing:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/03/unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt-enlightened-not-naive/385626/

basically if you make it past those first two episodes there are some GREAT jokes. if you like jokes. there is also an asian guy named dong. so, uh, some things never change, i guess.

plus, if you make it long enough there is a john hamm reward.

It sort of made me uncomfortable with them running the Dong joke into the ground, but later on when Kimmy said "Yes, Dong is a common Vietnamese name, let's move past it" or something to that effect, I felt slightly less skeeved.

scott seward, that article does give me some kind of hope that it's not JUST what it appears to be. if people derive some inspiration, comfort or strength from this show i certainly wouldn't begrudge them that. it's a very fine line to walk though. or maybe not? easy for me to say that there's a difference between showing a character whose laughter is one way of dealing with her trauma, and laughing at the circumstances of that trauma (those wacky cult leaders! oh, the sex abuse we endured, har!). but i haven't been through anything like this. i've known people with really serious illnesses who took much more strongly to gallows humor than to eggshell-walking, and people around them didn't know what to do with it.

well, in the name of comedy...i can forgive a lot. or go along with a lot. it's not supposed to be pretty. the dong thing though....i dunno...kinda lazy?

yeah i haven't gotten to the dong bit yet and fey/carlock are certainly capable of lazy cheap jokes and then thinking a glint of self-awareness redeems them (i mean, they originally sold this as TOOKEN - very curious when they did the flip to "unbreakable" and what inspired it), but i do think this show is on her side so whether jokes around a trauma victim are appreciated by the individual viewer i don't think they're being openly disrespectful to trauma victims

four episodes in and i love this show. would watch for Jenna (i mean Jane Krakowski) alone.

The daughter is named Xanthippe Lannister Voorhees!!!

I completely love this show after three episodes. I don't think it's just about trauma, it's also about oppression, bullying, any kind of suffering. There's a reason her roommate is a gay black guy, after all. Some of the questions posed - like when Kimmy asks if what she's gone through has made her a better person, or just bitter and angry - are really quite profound. Also, it's funny as hell.

Is the title some bad 80s joke ref

dont think so, as someone said it was called 'tooken' for most of its development

Is the title some bad 80s joke ref

maybe a faint echo of "The Unsinkable Molly Brown"

Yeah, that sounds right to me. Ftr I never thought it was necessarily disrespectful to trauma victims - just that I found it pretty hard to laugh when the show is constantly reminding you of this awful, heartbreaking and scary situation. It just sits together wrongly. Not sure any treatment of the material could quite avoid that, mind.

There a bunch of things about the show that are I suppose ethically questionable--is it making light of trauma, is it offensive that Jane Krakowski's character is a Native American, is Dong too much of a stereotype, is Titus too much of a stereotype, etc. I'm sure there are legitimate criticisms to be made about all of those aspects and more.

That said, it's got lots of good jokes and most importantly, Ellie Kemper's facial expressions.

http://i.imgur.com/W3aaU5f.gif

is the themesong based on a racist meme? sooo many questionable things. but honestly, i find most of the questions have the right answer, so to speak. and i'm glad ask, most of the time.

I also love that Titus' nemesis is named Coriolanus. This show has the best names.

xp I don't think the Antoine Dodson-like thing was racist (just as I don't think the irl Antoine Dodson thing was racist), simply because Autotune The News has done that to a lot of different kinds of news stories. If anything it betrays that the show is reaching for stale references.

Martin Short's appearance was the best thing on TV this year, last year, and next year.

otm

haha, it's certainly memorable!

I think I've figured out what I think about Jaqueline being Native American: I think it points to an important point in the show, which is that the show wants to talk about dealing with trauma and opression, yet the whole point of Kimmy starting over in NY is that that is where she can pass for a non-molewoman person. The idea of 'passing' is fundamental to the show, but it could easily have been glossed over. Instead they chose it for a b-plot and turned into the skid.

this show is great. Dong's Rick Moranis impression maybe best thing so far.

'passing' an interesting angle actually, i could see that having legs.

its a mistake to compare any sitcom besides the simpsons to 30 rock but this is really missing something. lots of the writing is there but it lands flat too often, idk if the actors arent there or the editing isnt tight enough or its just generally too cheap but it feels like it could be much much funnier than it actually is

it's missing commercials

'Black, gay and old. Uh, I'm not gonna even know what box to tick on the hate-crime form.'

Carol Kane is great in this, I am so happy to see her again. Starts out clunky but tightens up pretty fast... quicker than say Parks and Rec did.

The stereotypes thing is interesting, because it seems like most of the ones in question are main characters, not one-offs, and they're letting them develop. Surely that is good? They're all getting to make jokes and not just be punchlines. I assume the writers insisted on this and that is one reason NBC passed on it. Notice all the straight white dudes on the show *have* been punchlines and caricatures. Except the Voorhees husband guy who was just boring.

its a mistake to compare any sitcom besides the simpsons to 30 rock

Probably safe to make the comparison here since Fey and Carlock developed and produce it.

i really like this show! fast-paced, off-the-wall jokes that i suspect would have been sliced and diced by nbc's network notegivers. cute spin shout-out in one episode too.

and yeah i agree with f. hazel on the stereotype thing too — the characters are developing pretty well (even the theme song guy!). of course, recap and twitter 'culture' being the way they are, shooting first and actually engaging with the art later if at all is SOP...

I loved it. Some elements were still clunky for sure but I can see it hitting true greatness next season. It will be interesting to see how people react to how the show played off stereotypes - it worked for me, felt very much felt like it was always punching up. But I can see people feeling uneasy about some of it.

recap and twitter 'culture' being the way they are, shooting first and actually engaging with the art later if at all is SOP...

tbf nobody owes a sitcom (if we even want to call that art) full-season engagement before tweeting that they don't like a joke

frederik's point about "passing" being the overarching theme is OTM - obviously with Kimmy and Titus but it also extends to the teen daughter's fake bad girl story arc too and the bike guru and his "it's what's on the outside that counts" message.

tbf nobody owes a sitcom (if we even want to call that art) full-season engagement before tweeting that they don't like a joke

'tweeting that they don't like a joke' can in the aggregate seem like a full-on social media contest of 'trying to be the first on the block to strike something down'

but ymmv

Heh. I posted this in the netflix thread, but the Sliding Doors episode is tedious to get through.

It was really long, not sure why.

I did not particularly enjoy most of the final batch of shows, but the series ended nicely I guess.

I felt like it started strong, but then got a little meh. I really enjoyed the parent cheating episode.

The Sliding Doors episode, I kept putting off going to the bathroom until after the episode and then 40 minutes in I was like WTF is going on???

i really liked it

I liked it too

I would say for me it was the worst episode of the entire show. The Sliding Doors faux dialogue was kind of funny.

as someone who hasn't seen this since s1 how has the quality varied since

I haven't seen all of them because my wife watches this show while I'm working but I see the odd episode and I thought the Sliding Doors episode was funny

I don't get the hate for it either - yes it was completely unnecessary and certainly didn't deserve a double length episode, but bearing in mind the entire narrative arc of the half-series was more or less contained in the last episode it didn't feel any more self indulgent than the Titus/Sesame Street/MeToo plot that went nowhere or the true crime parody episode about Jon Hamm inventing Skrillex from the first half.

as someone who hasn't seen this since s1 how has the quality varied since

― resident hack (Simon H.), Wednesday, January 30, 2019 9:07 AM (thirty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

season 2 wildly uneven, gets suddenly classic and consistent during season 3

disclaimer i haven't seen the second half of season 4 yet

I lost touch with that show but the small moment when Jenna offers her a bottled water then throws it in the trash when she declines is one I think about often

Love Jenna and Titus, variable on Kimmy and Carol Kane. Love Josh Charles going full jerkoff, even more than in WHAS.

Remain unconvinced that Jon Hamm can do comedy (except in reaction shots)

he can however do karate

LOL y’all mean Jacqueline, not Jenna. They’re nearly the same character so the mixup is understandable.

The Sliding Doors episode wasn’t terrible, but its jokes are definitely thinner than the rest of the season.

xp yeah I was like who tf is Jenna (I did watch 30 Rock but not seen it for years)

The finale is insanely good and funny!

still not quite at the end yet, but that one joke where kimmy’s not-boyfriend goes to the toilet wearing a fedora and comes out not wearing it, and several scenes later titus is wearing a fedora he found in a sewer, is the kind of slow-burn joke this show is built for

oh shit I didn't even get that

you bloody wanker, the door slid!

I laughed at Zach Quinto a lot.

burning they, the gender-neutral burning man

this show is great i already miss it

At least you get umbrella academy in a couple hrs

Finale was great, though I wish Titus had sung "Circle of Flerm" instead of "Circle of Life."

a choose-your-own-adventure kimmy schmidt special just dropped

I was weirdly nitpicky about this show back when! I dont recall disliking it that much, how strange.

this was so ridiculous. the ending I got was incoherent

many LOLs

Loved the tonal shift if you choose violence.

i was just going to add this and it says that the release is delayed as they are prioritizing the safety of the voice actors?

I saw a story yesterday about there being some issues with getting dubbing ready for other countries so it was delayed in some territories.

I think I've seen 8 endings.

Some other oddities:

You get a different Donna Maria result if you phone her before or after Gretchen.
There's a store scene you only get if you plan the wedding instead of read the book, because you auto-fail the next branch and Mikey sends you back to the store.
There is an additional scene if you choose to wait for the Uber a second time, having failed once.
There's a character who can turn up in the final scenes without having been explained in the run-through (I only knew who it was because I'd seen them on a previous go).
Xanthippe is ordained via at least 6 different websites.
There's a karaoke scene between Xanthippe and Mimi Kanassis I haven't been able to trigger twice.

xpost thx! i will watch it on a vpn then. i was thinking weird stuff like they were doing live alternative endings.

Lol that would rule

Haha, this is really messing with my sense of completism. I know I'm going to need to go back for the easter egg if you listen to the entire 12 days of Christmas thing (clicked too soon last time).

The one if you play it again, after you listened all the way through?

I found out thanks to official spoilers that two of my endings were actually the same BUT it remembers that you saw one particular bit and never plays it again even if you do everything the same.

I think I have two scenes I haven't seen that I want to see, one of which (according to that official post) is the cast favourite scene and doesn't alter things i.e. it loops you back to the right answer afterwards if you pick it.

Skipping theme song gets you a long version of the theme, which is cool

I was weirdly nitpicky about this show back when! I dont recall disliking it that much, how strange.

For someone whose d/n is Stoop Crone I'm surprised to read this!

I was kind of underwhelmed with it, but maybe I just chose the unfunny paths.

my frustration the second time was that I made different choices only to find out they ended the story so I was stuck making some of the same choices again. obviously it is possible to get different endings/etc, but things mostly wound up the same for me the second time around.

lol at the actual University of Bristol phone number

also <3 the second uber ending, thanks for the tip

yeah the diarrhea emergency was funny

Titus is always hilarious. even though it did nothing to further the plot, Titus "reading" the baby was A+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFieEzoaDRQ

Clearly Kimmy is not too much of a stretch role for Ellie Kemper.

I'm glad I watched this again because I stumbled onto the Josh Groban cameo. Such a silly and simple gag but it was the hardest I've laughed in a while.

Meatwad Groban