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

well everyone's a critic (on a critic's twitter feed)

if you feel like everyone's trying to take down kimmy schmidt follow more comedy types they're doing cartwheels

eh i was more extrapolating a pattern. i get enough comedy in my own existence

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.

30 Rock had a lot of similar issues.

LIke Dr. Casino I have reservations about the premise, and personally think the lead actress could stand to dial it down a bit, but I'm hanging with it so far. The throwaway jokes are great, like Mrs. Voorhees wearing the stewardess outfit and saying (iirc) "Look around you!" while making the classic flight attendant exit-indicating hand gesture.

The teen daughter is the funniest and most promising character imo. She's not a Millennial as I've seen reported - she's the generation under them. "He fought a war against the Germans. The guys from soccer!"

people calling elements of this show racist or w/e either forgot or should also have a huge problem with

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTj47rcuM-4

Or "problematic"

I finished this and thought it was very enjoyable, titus and xanthippe are my favourites and kimmy is knopesque in her endearing optimism (she reminded me a little bit of liz lemon x kenneth as well).

Drawbacks: the "Dong" jokes were overdone, Kimmy's father was extremely tiresome, and Jane Krakowski (who I do think is terrific, fwiw) playing a native American seemed just needlessly inappropriate. Aside from the final episode, her having that backstory just didn't seem to serve any real purpose at all? And if the purpose was just to set up white people jokes, then why bother when the character is already established as an absurdly wealthy WASP? Omitting those details would've avoided the casual racism and left plenty of space for ironic skewering.

xanthippe is kinda bad at acting, though

Tim Blake Nelson is terrible in this, otherwise I loved the show

keep up with your cool garbage culture

A+

tim blake nelson makes me miss jim varney. r.i.p.

keep up with your cool garbage culture

pretty board description, but maybe a little too on-the-nose

after three episodes, i think this show is very mediocre. will continue watching for ellie kemper. her schtick is really good, but i think it works better in a less zany context like the office.

also tina fey's comedy has always been racist how is this news

comedy has always been racist how is this news

i never learned how to cross things out...

i mean i'm pretty sure the first joke was about how cheap the jutes and the angles were or whatever.

show is funny as heck watched it all in one day

I asked some Vietnamese coworkers, and "kim-mi" doesn't mean anything. :(

Hey, I'm jute! But ok, guess we are pretty cheap, so I'll allow it.

Dong means 'gascompany' in jutish, and ke-mi means 'chemistry'.

I never really got into any of the recent-years NBC sitcoms but this has some funny bits

The best bits are usually really obvious but they're about rich white people being horrible. Even snuck in a joke about the senile old rich dude having assaulted Blake Lively. And Kimmy's frame of reference for everything being the late 90s.

Titus! When are us guys gonna talk about cars?

senile old dude = Oscar from Sweet Charity!

i've noticed a lot of jokes about race and racism in 30 Rock and UKS that haven't really scanned to me as racist jokes like they have to some other people. obviously sometimes going "ha ha check out this racist thing but ironically get it" can in itself come off as insensitive/tonedeaf but most of the jokes about racism on the show don't let the characters off the hook for it (particularly 30 Rock which was never afraid to implicate Tina Fey's Fey stand-in character). the Dong jokes definitely felt a little painfully outdated and Sixteen Candles-y even when they tried to be meta about it, though.

love this big time

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.

I appreciate this point, but personally, I found myself wanting to see more scenes in the bunker, mainly because I liked those characters and it seemed like they had a dynamic in the flashbacks that could have been developed in interesting ways. Maybe the show hits the right balance between NYC scenes and flashbacks, but I'd be tempted to push that darker stuff further and see what could be done with it.

She was underground for 15 years; where does her perkiness come from?

I feel like this show sprays jokes at you, 90% of which are not funny at all and 10% of which are hilarious

she is perky because she is unbreakable, it is in the title

Oh, I get it now

:)

I got maybe a third of the way through this before spraining my eyes from rolling them so hard:

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/03/i-liked-unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt.html

you lost me at pastemagazine.com

fair point!

anyway this show rules top to bottom, eagerly awaiting more of it

I am still only about 2/3 of the way through, but I really enjoyed the brief Kymmi bits, including the Olive Garden shtick

anyway this show rules top to bottom, eagerly awaiting more of it

IMO the episodes where Ellie Kemper pulls funny faces are clearly superior to the rest.

holy moly, that paste article completely misses the point of this show

how can you get even two episodes into this show and think the main focus is "country bumpkin in the big city"

I think part of it involves being super stupid

I’m not suggesting that Tina Fey plagiarized Khan’s show outright but maybe she binge-watched it on Netflix over a weekend like I did, forgot it existed, and then created Unbreakable a year later while fighting off a case of déjà vu.

yeah i'm pretty sure this is what happened too

The Unbreakable writers can’t decide which hat they want Krakowski to wear: the sheltered Upper East Side housewife, the woman scorned, the self-hating Native American reconnecting with her past—wait, what? Yes, Krakowski’s ample talents are wasted on a bizarre backstory and a fractured character that feels more like connective plot tissue than a definable person.

...because a person can't be sheltered, scorned AND self-hating, amiritie? I mean, pick one dimension and run it into the ground already! This is a sitcom!

if anything she's making apartment 23 seem more mundane than it was - "a wacky show about urban living...without all that weird talk about trauma and self-analysis!"

i feel like the post mad men generation is unlearning how to watch tv /:

recap culture is killing us all

ok if you know anything about how earlier generations dismissed "the tv generation" the idea of dismissing new generations as not being as good at watching tv is really funny

"kids today don't know how to shut up at stare at a screen like we did"

thank you for glossing my joke /:

maybe the writer is just really young or naive

the best part of the "country bumpkin" stuff is how it's over the top and obviously no one is like that, but at the same time there's enough truth to it to burrrrn

Kimmy being all surprised/envious that her hometown now has an Olive Garden

hahaha oh man, that echoes so closely how I felt when the movie theater reopened in my home town while I was in college

sorry thomp i follow enough 35+ year olds on twitter that i assume the worst the second anyone posts the word "generation"

knew it xp

sokay. it was a deep core of seriousness and truth to it

my favorite thing in this I think was when kimmy responds to criticism in middle school style. good schtick, on one occasion peculiarly moving , a+

are you referring to '2090 called...'?

Were people even doing "______ called, and it..." burns in the nineties?

least favourite thing was the odd joke that explained itself in case the viewer was not paying attention -- "that's why your mother and I flew here in the great shiny metal bird ... I'm kidding, I know what planes are, come on, I was in the Air Force" -- "I know what planes are" is totally unnecessary

otoh if doing this every hour or so was the thing that bothered me most ..

I think it started from David Spade's Hollywood Minute in the 90s, so, I think so?

(xpost)

a lot of times -- mostly w xan -- she responds with middle schoolish non sequitur comebacks -- the one I found affecting was a 'I know you are, but what am i ' which made no sense as dialogue but worked ~ thematically ~

i know it's been noted plenty, but Dr. Frampf is my favorite mel brooks bit not done by mel brooks ever.

My least favourite joke was that Pinot Noir song.

Logan riding the miniature horse against fake background made me laugh. This show does good rich kid jokes.

I think you mean Pinot NuuuWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR

I liked the Pinot Noir song, much better homage to ridiculous viral video songs than the theme, which is too good

how is it possible not to like "Pinot Noir"

tom bereng-ar

myanmar

i would watch titus andromegan watch things for hours, like when he's watching the trial. the faces!

Facial expressions by Kimmy and Titus totally make this show.

Somebody with better video/audio editing skills should mash up "Pinot Noir" with "Immigrant Song."

Watched the first three eps and enjoyed them. Show very much feels like a YA introduction to 30 Rock's style of jokes/patter. I also get the feeling that they're deliberately not going getting any dirtier to change the rating away from a TV-14, even if the hyperfire refs pull from decades old pop-culture.

I dunno about that. They shot the first season thinking it would be on network TV. They're shooting the 2nd season knowing it'll be on netflix.

i am curious at what point in production they knew it was going to be on Netflix and not NBC. i'm pretty sure it was before they did episode 9, which has a winking referencing to "binge watching [a sitcom] on Netflix."

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

my gf is obsessed with the theme tune, sings it all the time

FE-males are STRONG-AS-HELL

my gf is obsessed with the theme tune, sings it all the time

same

3 eps in and not entirely sold on this, though i like most of the actors. if i remember it took at least half a season for me to really like 30 Rock though. fave part so far was "Hashbrown: no filter"

Somebody with better video/audio editing skills should mash up "Pinot Noir" with "Immigrant Song."

Obviously entitled "Kimmigrant Song."

I don't know how I'd react -- probably badly -- to a Tina Fey project with swears in it.

Guys.... Dong Nguyen is also the name of the creator of Flappy Bird

*_*

!

"That was the fanciest sentence I ever heard, and I used to watch Frasier"

This show is pretty cool, hits a lot of the New Yorkers-joking-about-flyover-country type humor that 30 Rock had. Lots of killer one-liners.

Cool thing is the country bumpkin stuff isn't the main focus so much as, as has been pointed out, satire of oppression, class dynamics, etc.

Can someone confirm that Xanthippe also plays Kymmi

nope

Kymmi is actually Kiernan Shipka who plays Jon Hamm's character's daughter on Mad Men

I don't understand, why would they get the same actress to play two different characters?

I guess that Netflix Budget ain't NBC budget

they aren't the same actress? unless you're having a larft

Idk man it's just kinda bizarre

Like they didn't think anyone would notice

Xanthippe and kymmi never appear in the same episode together

And then at then end in dernsville kymmi disappears

Martin Short was kind of freaking me out. Funny though! Ever since Inner Space he has been on this body horror comedy thing.

all white girls look same dot com

This show is pretty awesome! I loved 30 Rock and this has that same rhythm of comedy to it, it's so freakin' quick and snappy.

Loved them pretending to be rich in that expensive restaurant, with the cardboard laptop and the faux-French "Beyonce'"

"Who is coming to this party? Fancy Manhattan-os? They're going to notice that my cummerbund is just a piece of automobile tire."

"I've been watching you, Kimmy"
"I know, that's why I was picking my nose earlier, to gross you out. Burnt!"

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a84MQVZLVVY/U6SnpYdV7WI/AAAAAAAAYdE/4xxOwAsQrIk/s1600/mgs5bcdefk6u2t.gif

Oh god, the Ghostbusters references.

this is excellent, the "passing" theme is really well integrated imo

The Bob Dole t-shirt in the headshot

yup

I liked the photoshop she did for their Christmas card, where he husband was shaking someone's hand and the hand wasn't cropped out.

Kind of feel like going to Olive Garden. This show is insidious.

I like Tim Blake Nelson in this! He is taking an Earnest-type character one step further into realistic profound stupidity -- and that was offputting at first, but ended up being very, very funny to me.

I like Tim Blake Nelson in this!

Agreed! Anyone who hates on "GRATEFUL CAT MARRIES HERO COP" is some kinda commie.

OK I can't read most of this because I'm only like 5 episodes in but I really really like it. Titus! He's my favorite character in forever. "Ok, I'm not a handyman but that was my nickname one summer on Fire Island." Also, "Pinot Noir" was amazing. I love Carol Kane so so much and Jane K is great. It's sort of hit or miss for me still but a lot of fun overall.

"fave part so far was "Hashbrown: no filter" - Yes, so good!

I watched and definitely enjoyed this muchly. I can't say i unequivocally loved the show - the race/stereotype jokes are troubling, and there were a lot of bits that just died (Tim Blake Nelson) but I can.. almost... forgive them because this show is darker, unapologetically feminist (maybe?) and thematically ambitious than 30 Rock

I guess I want to applaud them for trying to do better than a just being a joke machine (for instance, as much as Krakowski's Native American backstory has been criticized, I actually liked it) and the themes about overcoming trauma and the eternal disguise are pretty well played. there is some risk taking here that wouldn't have made it to network TV, and i bet the next season - designed only for Netflix - will be even better

but I also want to slap them for being so goddamn lazy about so many jokes, so many lampshaded excuses... ("that's still racist, Kimmy!" "of course I know what an airplane is, I was in the Air Force!")

the arthur chu piece linked in the long duk dong thread is pretty on point, though I don't know if I would trust Fey & co. to actually use his suggestion of making Dong even more of a stereotype and turning it inside out without completely messing it up
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2015/03/race_in_unbreakable_kimmy_schmidt_how_critics_are_missing_the_point.html

"What white nonsense is this?!"

http://gawker.com/reporter-doctor-found-dead-was-devastated-by-martin-sh-1695905962

What the heck

holy shit

everything about that is really sad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveXb1nTdBo

:(

a little B-I-T of a J-E-R-K

Spotted on FB:

https://scontent-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpt1/v/t1.0-9/11146234_10153798484799689_5073898744347238171_n.jpg?oh=699f212b2a16932cd9037921bb7791d1&oe=55D35A1B

i believe it's a 'shop

shop or... they own a color printer

like how implausible is it someone taped a piece of paper to a wine bottle

so you're saying there's a whole shop full of 'em!?

Enjoyed the last stretch of episodes less than the beginning tbh. Tina Fey's bad lawyers schtick wasn't all that funny and Hamm's act had the dramatic weight of an SNL skit. The show is the best when it's about Kimmy's weird community of misfits rather than her origin story.

You know the bad lawyers were the prosecutors from the OJ trial, right

that was pretty funny to me, and i had to wonder what percentage of the audience had no idea of who they were portraying.

i dont know how i knew but i KNEW the reverend would be played by jon hamm.

I got that they were OJ trial lawyers, which only made it seem that much more like a bad SNL skit.

Kimmy 's whole 90s reference shtick is a bad SNL skit!

your sitcom finale didn't have any dramatic weight it was sad

thought last few eps had too much dramatic weight - the thought of hamm's character escaping justice (which, yes, of course he wasn't going to, but) made me so anxious and angry, and the ineptitude of the lawyers was so infuriating, that i missed a few lols. [love the series overall though]

Okay I had the same response! I thought I was just being a weirdo but the inept lawyers were stressing me out SO BAD. Thank you, stevie. I feel less alone now.

I think it taps into the thing about, you know, the actual crime that inspired the show being so awful. And the show treats that pretty okay for the most part, I think - not getting cheap yuks out of it, hinting that Kimmy's actual experience was awful and kind of bleak for a sitcom - but letting Hamm off the hook would've just compounded any gross leanings the show has in this regard, somehow. Like, the dramatic underpinning of the show needs Hamm to be punished, otherwise its too cruel to Kimmy and her experience and denies her the opportunity of closure and moving forward.

I've decided I would like a prequel show that is just Titus and the landlady and their adventures before Kimmy appeared

would watch

television is getting a decent dose of Carol Kane right now but we really need more

Carol Kane is a renewable comedy resource

yeah i thought the last few eps not being that funny was purposeful. the whole show walks a tone tightrope, because the inciting event is so horrible. i appreciate it even if i found watching the last couple of episodes unpleasant at times--it's like the new, sincere tina fey.

I feel like they sort of shifted the tone too much and tried to tie off loose ends in the event they only had one season to work with. The divorce, the kids going away to school, the trial, etc. when they could have just milked it for a couple of seasons with her as a nanny for a spoiled rich family.

i'm glad they didn't, frankly! it's good imo that they didn't just entire drop the incredibly dark premise/real event that the show springs from, there just could have been some better jokes in that part for sure and no OJ/Tim Blake Nelson crap

I didn't entirely understand why her friend was mad at her for not sending her outside: even though she saw the rat I thought she wasn't entirely sure if armageddon had happened or not and didn't want to risk her friend's life. Why did they think Kimmy knew it wasn't the end of the world? Why would she stay in the bunker if she knew it was safe to leave?

Kimmy didn't believe the Reverend at that point, but didn't have the confidence to send out her friend instead - still fighting off the brainwashing. The friend was mad in retrospect because Kimmy was the only one who was fighting him, and theoretically if she called his bluff they all would've gotten out six years earlier.

It's not fair of course...

xxpost I think your question comes from a position of not-trapped-in-a-bunker priviledge

d

PINOOOOOOOOOOOOOT NOIR

In a way, I like the storyline about them all being mad at Kimmy. They become enraged at the imperfect woman, rather than at the downright evil man. The weird thing is, I kinda feel as if they don't make it plausible, though it's obviously something we see over and over in real life.

going back to rewatch the first eps I (still) got kinda choked-up at "The worst thing that ever happened to me happened in my own front yard." -- both the tone of the writing & the delivery of that line are on point. The show does 'serious' well enough (which also means: infrequently enough) that I want to stand up & applaud at those moments where most sitcoms would earn an eyeroll. I think some of the squirm-inducing tension we experience during the trial sequences knowingly plays with that dynamic; but I would have to rewatch it to point to any specific scenes.

I'm up to episode 3 & one of the Voorhees' dogs is named Abattoir #jokesyoumissed

i wouldn't say this show gets everything right, and different people are going to have different moments where it potentially feels too glib, but that it's not the foulest show in history is evidence of how much they got right

srsly if i was an exec and anybody, even tina fey, said "i want to make a fish-out-of-water show about a childhood kidnapping victim" i would have nipped that in the bud fast

croup OTM

the latter part of the season they veered too far into making the kidnapping "wacky" rather than "dark"

and gtfo with that Ernest P. Worrell wannabe character

ellie kemper and tituss burgess are both on such a high level, id even k. carol kane is still great, i'm less sold on jane k doing the same thing again.

i have to say tho that all sitcom love triangle plots make my eyes glaze over. that's as far as i've gotten.

Tituss is hilarious and my fav part of the show

ellie kemper and tituss burgess are both on such a high level, id even k. carol kane is still great, i'm less sold on jane k doing the same thing again.

this. kemper has been a star ever since blowjob girl imo.

https://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/2011/6513/original.jpg?w=800&h

Finished this the other day. I was a little sceptical at first but then before I knew it I'd watched about 6 episodes in a row, laughing uncontrollably a lot of the time.
I thought the theme-song dude's little cap-tip/nod to the camera right at the end was kind of a perfect way to finish - I sort of want to have it in gif form for those 'I WARNED YOU' type moments.

https://youtu.be/TSuat6MSwT4

https://youtu.be/TSuat6MSwT4

oops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSuat6MSwT4

filming outside my job today they asked me to turn the air conditioner off because it was interfering with their sound.
fuck entitled bullshit, and this show is still bad and not funny.

what happened when they told you no?

i mean when you told them no. oof

they whined until i told them i would turn it off for the time they were actually shooting. which thankfully was only a few minutes. i am a pushover and avoid confrontation.

as a fan i thank u for your service

the monsters

You should have asked for the deal in Hustle and Flow

i don't even know what that is.
but it's a 90 degree day and we have cheese that needs to remain at reasonable temperatures.
also, when someone confronts me on my way to work in the morning and tells me i can't go down the block they're already starting off on the wrong foot.

as a fan i thank u for your service

a fan was all he needed

Did the cheese temperature stay reasonable?

I've had my street closed off for filming before--sucks. Of course they always send out 18 year old PAs to patrol the zone so you feel like a dick if you insist on bringing your groceries inside

you should not feel like a dick; those people are the ones who are dicks. "sorry we're filming" fuck you buddy, i gotta go to work.

the PAs all look basically like Kimmy Schmidt though

Those Cheeses Are Strong As Hell...

S2 trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i4s5LgdmjQ&feature=youtu.be

Is it just me or does that look...not good? I'll watch it, though, just nervous now.

Ugh.

looks fine to me

it looks a little weird, like they forgot the jokes, but maybe i just hate trailers now

still looking forward to it, the first season was the most delightful surprise

wow had no idea they were doing another season of this, hard to imagine how it's gonna work

looksfun

i think u could probably make a terrible disney movie-esque trailer of the first season like that too (editing is powerful) and thus i withhold judgement until it drops

but that trailer is bad ftr and im gonna watch the show anyway but cmon netflix get it together

Trailers suck and have since Kurt Cobain was still makin' hits.

eagerly anticipating this.

hard to imagine how it's gonna work

it will probably have something to do with kimmy responding inappropriately in social & professional situations because of her inexperience and wide-eyed enthusiasm, also jokes.

maybe she becomes a PA on 10 Cloverfield Lane

wow had no idea they were doing another season of this, hard to imagine how it's gonna work

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, March 14, 2016 10:48 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Netflix bought the show from NBC with a 2 season commitment, and already renewed it for a 3rd season.

loved all of season 1 except the courtroom finale. this looks like more of the same. gimme more!

Courtroom finale had its moments. It's always great to see Jerry Minor.

courtroom episodes were a great preview for watching the OJ show

Something about the peril of the courtroom episodes didn't work for me. It wasn't fun watching the reverend convince everyone that jimmy was lying.

dowd otm

the only point for me where the show's concept seemed in irredeemably bad taste

Debuted.

... but not well.

it's a little shaky this go around. carol kane is carrying it.

i really like ellie kemper and i think it is remarkable how much charm and wit she brings to her absurd character in this stupid, contrived, frequently offensive show

i don't think i like tina fey's writing tbh... i had issues with 30rock too. it's too farcical, maybe, but played off with the authority of satire? idk

"I don't want to go back to Vietnam, it's full of baby-boomer tourists trying to feel something" made me LOL

'The Rem Koolhaas R.E.M. Coolhouse?'

Deep cut.

i really like ellie kemper and i think it is remarkable how much charm and wit she brings to her absurd character in this stupid, contrived, frequently offensive show

She's the best character by some distance. Had a good lol at her 'right now!' after Xan asked her when she'd puked on the patio

And I'd forgotten how awesome/catchy the theme song is

3 eps in and this thing is a royal disaster

I thought it was shaky at first, but I stuck with it (because I love Ellie Kemper and her facial expressions) and midway through the season I'm loving it again.

The first episode of the first season was hilarious. We watched the first episode of the new one last night and didn't laugh once, it was actually difficult to see how anyone involved could have gone 'yep, this will do'.

Yeah episode 1 is terrible, but the second washes the taste of the second away quickly.

Can't get a decent videofile or at least one that works through my memory stick to my tv.
Hope PB is up again tomorrow cos it wasn't today.

My first two real good laughs came in E4...

"The Reverend was a psycho liar who said he came up with the 'give the world a Coke' commercial!"

The first gay bar Tituss and his date went to was called SCOTUS.

only watched two episodes so far but yeah it's still funny but not as tight as first season

Armisen was unnecessary

those fake Barbara Kruger and Ed Ruscha art pieces in the Vorhees home were really fucking on point though

^otm. Some of the sight gags have been excellent.

So much singing.

Episode 7 was the one that hooked me. Forget Kimmy, the battle between Anna Camp and Jane Krakowski is where it's at.

I will say that Amy Sedaris has been killlling it

only 3 episodes in but i really like the depth the supporting characters are getting, jacqueline and titus especially. without giving away specifics, it's so nice to see titus win at life twice in the same episode, and not as a means to a punchline. lillian's getting some stuff to do that defines her a bit better too.

the episode length (~30 minutes rather than 23) is probably what's giving them space to evolve the characters without compromising too much on the 30 rock-ness of the whole thing.

Can't get a decent videofile or at least one that works through my memory stick to my tv.
Hope PB is up again tomorrow cos it wasn't today.

>=(

You won't be able to Kimmy-fy your Netflix account page if you go this route.

Some writer is having a hell of an '80s nostalgia trip cramming in all these TMNT and Transformers references.

Also was Gretchen the one who had the unfortunate bout of Hulkamania last season?

not sure people who think this isn't as good as season 1 should be trusted

None of the eps have been real duds, but it totally shifts into another better gear about halfway through (I'm only at episode 10 at this point).

A few episodes in, I'm actually enjoying this as much or more than s1, but I wasn't blown away by s1. "The Internet doesn't talk like that. The Internet talks like Chandler" = classic.

The Tina Fey episodes are next-level lol.

Episode 4 = classic.

'I have a moustache!'

"I don't go where you work and tell you to wake me up"!

I just watched ep.3, which included Kimmy's running high-five gag, & it was very funny because earlier in the day I had looked up Chappelle Show "When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong" & watched the one about the high-five

Lot of burping this season.

enjoyed the second season very much, possibly more than the first although that is likely coloured by the 2nd finishing strong vs the tail off with the trial in the 1st

Started off really not caring for this - the wide-eyed naïf Kimmy from S1 turned into a backward woman-child at the outset, the Jacqueline Native American plot so carefully built in S1 was just abandoned (not to mention the step-daughter), SO MUCH SINGING, pop culture references reaching SHARE IF YOU REMEMBER THIS THING levels...

But about the time Tina Fey's character showed up it started winning me over again. Andrea and Kimmy was a good double (triple?) act, for sure. Titus was pretty much nothing throughout the season though, and throwing Dong away in the way they did just felt a waste. And what was Fred Armisen's recurring character even for? Was Zosia Mamet deliberately channelling her character from Girls?

Sadly, the biggest laff might have been the Mad Men in-joke.

what

pop culture references reaching SHARE IF YOU REMEMBER THIS THING levels...

"RUN LILLIAN"

also i felt it a bit... odd (not in a bad way) that they kept reciting catchphrases from the us office to ellie kemper's face

2nd season is a little hit-and-miss imo compared to the first but it has the same rapid-fire jokes so even if something falls flat something else comes along right behind it and usually nails it. Titus and Lillian are pure joys to watch.

ditch Fred Armisen plz, I get that he's funny and he can be funny but just having him in a scene does not necessarily = comedy.

And what was Fred Armisen's recurring character even for?

robert durst jokes

UunBREAKABLE Kimmy Schmidt, more like UnBEARABLe etc amiright?!

*I don't actually believe this, just wanted to slide in with the challenging opintion before it became common curren$y

never seen this show before, just saw ep 1 of s2, it did very little for me.

Is Tina Fey sposed to be funny in this? She kind of isnt.

is tina fey in the first ep of season 2?

Show probably makes a lot more sense if you start at the beginning

Is Tina Fey sposed to be funny in this? She kind of isnt.

that's cool imo. i like that she can be somewhere in her own creation without being the comedy centre of attention a la ricky gervais.

Trayce: Moodles is right, you should start at the beginning. I'll add that I found the first episode of season 2 to be grimly unfunny, but after that it quickly remembers laughter.

is tina fey in the first ep of season 2?

Didn't think so...?

Christ. I meant Jane Krakowski. Weird brain fart there sorry.

ep 1 of s2 is possible the worst of the lot. I was worried it'd totally lost it after s1 but it did get better.

Season finale is pretty heavy, also unsatisfying as genre finales go.

Ha, I usually don't get people's hipster issues but lol at "are you now or have you ever been a member of Arcade Fire?"

biggest laugh for me was harry weiner and ivana eata weiner. juvenile, I know; had to be Cross' delivery

Sedaris is KILLIN it tbh; this has gotten much better than the first 3 episodes were

As soon as Lillian said "they're just two hayseeds from Texas" I was waiting for the "we're from Austin" punchline and I was not disappointed.

As an Austin resident, I'm offended by the idea that we have more corny hipsters than NYC. If anything, we've inherited some who were priced out of Brooklyn. They cone down here and complain that nothing is as good here as back home.

I didn't think the idea was that there are more hipsters in Austin than in NYC per se, just that Lillian had assumed that "from Texas" was a non-hipster guarantee without considering Austin.

Phew, season 2 is getting way better. I am enjoying the running biscotti jokes.

Seconding praise for Amy Sedaris and Anna Camp.

fwiw the depiction of Titusville, FL was 100% otm.

in s02e01 i didn't get that armisen was supposed to be robert durst. he was unfunny either way.

I love Tina Fey's mastery of dialog where one line contains both the setup and the punchline... "I'm better at this when I drink. It's like playing darts or driving a Zamboni or running away from a Zamboni you can't stop."

"It's called compartmentalizing and it's not a problem because I know the words to describe it."

"I'll kill her" "the only person who has ever killed on my show is the hilarious Louis Anderson, and that woman deserved it."

MAKE
LOaVEs?
NOT!
WARning

How is BearDinB.com not a actual website?

Kinder recommended this to me the other day. First episode was decent!

Ha, I usually don't get people's hipster issues but lol at "are you now or have you ever been a member of Arcade Fire?"

Saw this one last night and have to admit I belly laughed, the show's growing on me a bit now.

But I thought the Ivana Eata Weiner joke was terrible and made me wince.

no way, I was into the cascading Weiner jokes

yeah that got an honest to god laugh out loud from me.

I totally need the fake songs mixtape!

I've had Dusk Mountie's "Brother Baptist" in my head for weeks now.

http://www.tvguide.com/news/unbreakable-kimmy-schmidts-season-2-songs-jeff-richmond/

Ivana Ida. Jeez, learn to pronounce some names.

I've made the mistake of watching this and 30rock at the same time, and I'm mixing up all the effing characters as a result.

both tituss's big jokes on both series are about wine

"d'fwine. d'fwink responsibly."

"move quickly. like chop chop. that place where they cut your hair during plastic surgery."

^^ stunning

"my jams are grape, jock, and space"

"The only person who has ever killed on this show is the hilarious Louie Anderson, and that woman deserved it."

i love the double swerve in this line.

that "Rem Koolhaus R.E.M. Coolhouse" joke won't leave my head

I loved that maybe the most, that was so bizarrely esoteric, like what percentage of UKS viewers wd get that?

Not me, someone explain the R.E.M. part to me.

There's a band called REM, that's pretty much it.

Took me a while to finish this, felt it kind of fell off in the middle third and felt like an obligation for a while instead of something fun. Also I really didn't like Amy Sedaris in it just like I didn't like Tim Blake Nelson in the first season.

The funniest line for me was the hipster couple talking about combining their names to make the last name "Thompstein"...because my wife and I combined parts of our last names to make our son's last name.

REM Coolwagon

I Can't Fight This Feeling Any More (And I Feel Fine)

I just saw The Last Detail for the first time without knowing that there was a nude, 21-year-old Carol Kane in it. I do not know how to process this information afterward

not only a Rem Koolhaas joke but a running Philippe Starck Ghost Chair joke too!

i love this show but has tina fey ever met a gay person i wonder

Titus Andromedon had a brief cameo in a 30 Rock episode in one of their many fake tv show promos. just caught that the other day

before pinot noir there was d'fwine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2MuXDjFTy4

on Episode 6. some aspects of this show remind me a lot of Catch-22.

and Police Squad. Obviously the rapid fire one-liners and non sequiturs were there in 30 Rock, too, but in 30 Rock the main roles were played by actors who were exasperated by their absurd showbiz universe. Here nobody has more clue than anybody else, which is nice.

in 30 Rock the main roles were played by actors who characters were exasperated by their absurd showbiz universe.

trying to work on writing sentences that mean real things, here in the 2017

how did ellie kemper get prettier between season 1 and 2

"look at us, both having man problems."
"is that why you've been shouting so much in the bathroom?"
"no, that's because of cheese."

Schmidter is coming. (Sorry.)

Wow, I laughed once at Fred Armisen!

o m g @ Titus lemonading

how did ellie kemper get prettier between season 1 and 2

Maya Rudolph as Dionne Warwick was a gift from heaven.

I didn't like any of Titus' songs this year. :( Even the Lemonading part (especially the Lemonading part tbh).

And for some reason, my favorite gag of the whole season, which still had me laughing when I'd think about it hours later, was the whole "Linda" thing.

Jacqueline at Trump University

"Go Pricks!"

ya tbh the spoken word of Titus' Lemonading >>>> the actual songs of Titus' Lemonading

I'm convinced I can swim

^ hearing this to the tune of I Believe I can Fly

same

(that was the joke.)

i didn't see the ep yet.

you're still a shit poster tho so there's that

It wasn't even this season.

Also fuck you.

I missed this show so much and didn't even realize until we fired it up tonight

Like season 2, this season started off really poorly, but episodes 5 and 6 are cracking.

jug shack!

I dunno, I thought episode one fit the bill nicely. But I love Titus very much and I could watch Ellie Kemper skip around in pajamas for hours.

the voorhees family used alcohol to lure irish children into their factories

i watched the first 4 episodes of the new season last night. it's pretty weak. way too many songs. also the focus feels off like the leads are just hanging around or something. the ep where Don Draper is on the phone trying to get her to sign the divorce papers was lame af.

i'm slow getting through this but episode 3 is dark as hell. they've been dancing around the bleakest aspects of the kidnapping for a while, but laura dern walks in and it suddenly swings into top gear. incredibly well handled too.

Dern is definitely great but her character was pointless. the plot about murdering the guy w an icepick and speech from Maria in the bunker was 'dark' but the tension/realism of it was based entirely on her not being able to speech English. which doesn't make any sense cos in an earlier episode they revealed during the trial that she actually could speak English the whole time.

ok I work at a college and and am the first to rmde @ college students but the feminist/college party episode felt kinda hostile

Dern is definitely great but her character was pointless.

i don't agree with that at all. she was there to demonstrate that kimmy's ptsd isn't going anywhere, and also to highlight (in the later scene) that she's also a victim of abuse in past relationships. titus initially looked like he was going to tear her to shreds, but once he twigged to what else was going on he absolutely shone. dern's character was a fantastic way into tackling all of this.

xpost there's quite a bit of that kind of thing, unfortunately. Jokes about consent contracts, trigger warnings, cultural appropriation etc. I guess that's the zeitgeist. I enjoyed the series as a whole, some funny stuff.

The jokes about everything else are cool, though?

Yup; just stay away from my sacred cows.

Just keep 'em off my damn lawn. #Selfdeprecation

One of the central points of the college episode seemed to be taking shots at self-described male feminists who lean heavily on woke language but still feel entitled to women's time / bodies, though i appreciate that some of the other stuff could be interpreted as hostile.

these specific jokes abt trigger warnings, consent, etc weren't clever or well-written and were also really mocking and dismissive. It's not that you can't joke about anything, but these in particular were not great; when your only goal is "look how STUPID this is" w/o any wit or thought it's prob not gonna be good

those jokes were fine. it's not like the episode was built around them, they popped up a handful of times. Kimmy's humor is all about the fish-out-of-water stuff anyways.

having a hard time buying that the rich daughter would be unpopular in Columbia university. she only knows these jock dorks? there are no other rich people at this place?

also given that tina fey has been totally "LALALA I'M NOT LISTENING" every time she's confronted with shitty things in her tv shows it's probably actually hostile

I remember the consent form jokes in that episode, but nothing about trigger warnings.

Not to squash this line of discussion -- as Stevie said, the jokes in question weren't clever, and I'm starting to cringe every time Tina Fey uses her show to talk back at the Internet -- but I just watched the church episode, and the gospel choir part raised goosebumps for real. (Though it does also suggest that Kimmy is Jesus.)

Also the episode prior (where Titus recounts his cruise experience) is kind of perfect.

Ha! I just learned that Taskrabbit is an irl thing.

also given that tina fey has been totally "LALALA I'M NOT LISTENING" every time she's confronted with shitty things in her tv shows it's probably actually hostile

― clouds, Saturday, 27 May 2017 04:24 (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm starting to cringe every time Tina Fey uses her show to talk back at the Internet

― Bashir-Worf Hypothesis (Leee), Saturday, 27 May 2017 06:34 (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, and they need to stop doing it. that episode where titus did the japanese play felt like a lecture.

I think tbh that's what makes it feel hostile! The fact that the jokes aren't particularly clever or crafted w/ much effort, they're just like... "lol look how DUMB this is", which makes it seem like she has a chip on her shoulder or something. I mean if she found humor in all of that stuff in a v clever way it wouldn't stick out so much.

yeah, and her response to the whole jacqueline/jackie lynn thing was handwavey:

my new goal is not to explain jokes. I feel like we put so much effort into writing and crafting everything, they need to speak for themselves. There’s a real culture of demanding apologies, and I’m opting out of that.

Yeah, and this laziness is very disappointing coming from someone who wears glasses.

Question: theres a scene in the bunker where I guess its the first time Maria (?) has ended up there and shes yammering away in spanish... did that have subtitles? It didnt on the file we were watching and I wasnt sure if that was part of the joke.

It did, but now I can't remember what the thrust of what she was saying was.

We get our files from... sources and sometimes the damn things dont come with any STs. Made for very confusing viewing in Game of Thrones during all the dothraki shit.

did that have subtitles? It didnt on the file we were watching and I wasnt sure if that was part of the joke

for some reason they decided to have her unable to speak English for this gag where in the first season they reveal she understands English fine.

Just watched - the college kids episode didn't seem that hostile, although I guess it depends how you read the 'everyone here is a baby!' solution that Kim comes up with it

MARIA IN THE BUNKER FLASHBACK SPOILERS if you're into that sort of thing.

She was saying that she had an icicle hidden up her butt with which she could use to the stab the Rev if only she could near him quickly enough, but then it melted.

lol I can't believe I'd forget THAT

One of the central points of the college episode seemed to be taking shots at self-described male feminists who lean heavily on woke language but still feel entitled to women's time / bodies

i.e. the secondary plot from Season 19 of South Park.

I've got three left to watch and the season has been as full of laughs as the previous two. As with them, it's the wordplay jokes that make me laugh more than anything else - I actually find the fish-out-of-water/hokiness of both Kimmy and Titus (and Laura Dern) a bit much and lazy much of the time.

that titus lemonade thing went on for waaaaay too long and wasn't very funny apart from the voice over

this show's losing it tbh

The college episode feels more like it's criticizing the public percection of college now, rather than the students themselves.

Also, I hope someone finds something good to do with Daveed Diggs soon.

My favourite joke in this show is Titus's outrage whenever anyone thinks he should be smarter or better informed than he is.

The Titus backing vox for the nutbar tinfoil hat man was funny til they got to the "I love boobs" punchline, that was really weak.

And the whole Lillian filibustering scene was kinda pointlessly long?

I have nitpicks about this show here and there, but overall it's still amazingly funny, with a joke-per-minute rate that probably even outpaces 30 Rock.

i agree. the joke a minute factory is still going strong. Titus has so many great lines.

And it made me laugh out loud (watching by myself) a few times. Which almost never happens - even in real life I'm a smiler. The same went for the second series, though, and lots of folks found that terrible.

Bonorcaphant!

Also, I've probably posted this before, but Ellie Kemper and Tituss Burgess have the absolute greatest facial expressions. Like half the fun of this show is watching them react to things.

kimmy has a weird judgy streak in the new season i don't really care for. like the episode where she decides Titus is a horrible person and leaves to go crash w her college friends, ending up literally looking down on him. weirdly this persists even when she is scheming with him a few eps later when they are doing the bathroom thing. one scene she will be talking about how he's such a bad person who only cares about himself and then she drops it and does a 180 because the plot dictates. she's gotten kind of annoying and the "I'm a mole person!" thing feels more and more like her excuse for doing whatever she wants.

also never really been a fan of Tina Fey's alcoholic therapist character

i did lol when they got accosted by the crack dealer and he was giving out Big Pharma-style promotional pens that said "Crack" on them

i love this season; its one-liners have really been excellent

I'm liking it so far, aside from the lazy and stupid and tone-deaf "jokes" in the college episode (Stevie D(eux) and clouds OTM).

But like 30 Rock, and Great News, this show REALLY needs someone else to do the incidental music. Enough with the goddamn clarinet.

Well Tina fey's husband is the composer so have fun with that dream

There's a kind of 'high strung', 'intense' 'manic' pitch to this which I really like in comparison to a similar but very different pitch in say Big Bang Theory

this is not exactly a fresh observation since it's been true from the beginning but I love how gross Titus is. gay characters, even when sympathetically drawn, are almost always so unbelievably put-together and prissy that it's wonderful to see a gay man who routinely mistakes a rash for jelly.

i finished the season yesterday. feels pretty aimless at this point. these characters aren't growing or changing except for Titus. Kimmy flunks out of college and hey lucky for her she happens to know someone who just got rich and is starting his own company so i guess she is going to make a career out of being a manic pixie for rich people. on that tip Jacqueline is a good person now, except she just ditched her husband for entirely superficial reasons, so it feels like whatever the scene calls for, i guess. yes you can say who cares its just a dumb comedy but so much of this season has been about these characters asserting themselves as moral authorities while continuing to stumble blindly into success at the cost of others.

i was very surprised Perry didn't feature at all in the finale he was a promising character but seems like his main role was to call out Kimmy's privilege and after doing that a few times they just forgot about him.

like he only existed to add depth to her character

I think that the show belongs to Titus now; early on, the unbreakable Kimmy schtick grated a lot, and he was the only thing worth watching for.

so much of this season has been about these characters asserting themselves as moral authorities while continuing to stumble blindly into success at the cost of others.

one of the foundational strengths of this show is the way it slowly reveals it's basically "it's always sunny in philadelphia" dressed up as "mary tyler moore"

not sure whether it's down to my mental state or the show's, but this series has been a chore. i'm at the halfway mark and have no incentive to finish it. components have been fantastic (titus, lillian, the incredible laura dern sequence, everything to do with lemonading) but as a piece it's just flat.

recently i went back to 30 rock. it's electric in a way that this is not. yes the two shows don't have to be ~the same~, but without that energy i don't know what this show is… meant to be. kimmy's found her way, she's settled into her environment, she's in control, and now she's just doing things.

also, there's something just slightly grating about the modern-day gags, like fey and carlock have drifted too far from young america and are riffing on things in an observational way rather than a subjective way. the entire post-post-post-post-feminism plot feels like the writers tried too hard to make a slippery-slope statement, criticising people who think way too hard about feminism by thinking way too hard about feminism.

"I'm calling Dean Cain, who'll clean up this mess. And then I'm calling Dean Koontz, who is the Dean."

"I'm not supposed to die this way. A fortune teller told me she would kill me if I didn't pay her, and I still haven't."

"I'll never forget the Post cover: Horse Found. That was before they did puns."

watched all six new eps this morning. they were really good all around.

Oh snap, they're here already? Are there going to be more than 6?

six now, the rest (six or seven?) in the coming months

Weird to see Ki Hong Lee show up in the hilariously bad “Wish Upon” movie

so glad this is back, wife and I just got around to watching the last season of Broad City, which was super fucking good after flagging somewhat the previous year. now this can fill the void.

got to the third episode. amazing episode that. haven't seen any other show make comedy out of the trump era quite like it, but i guess there will be more series doing it in the near future.

Yeah that was pretty well done imo

"I'm not liquid at the moment but...."
"...You are sometimes!? You can do that - do you have SUPERPOWERS!?!"

Show still in top form, esp thanks to Titus, Kimmys unrelenting gurny grinning may be starting to grate on me a tad tho.

The "get laid" scene seemed like it wouldn't be funny, but it was pretty hilarious.

What kind of dystopian tech firm penalizes its engineers for coming in late?!@?? WE ARE THE GLUE THAT MAKES THIS ECONOMIC ENGINE RUN LIKE A KITTEN!

But seriously folx, it's nice to see Tina Fey grappling with experiences outside of her own, even if it isn't groundbreaking.

OK the last two episodes are brilliant. Like, I would never have expected to be invested in Kimmy putting rocks in a backpack.

Also, the look on the kid's face when she empties her backpack.

i loved this season so much.

the lemonading episode really made me get intense about this show, which i had enjoyed before - not just because of tituss’ amazing charisma, but the message in that episode, which is really loving while also aware of how loving can be extremely hard. but i thought this season built on that empathy in wonderful ways - that also showed how the whole MRA thing is a rancid ideology based in selfishness and other awful feelings.

What do you think about the ideology of backpacks?

this is pretty good. the show continues with the non-stop killer lines tossed off by Titus or whoever.

i lol'd at "Al-Gore-Rhythm"

got taken for a loop by the mockumentary episode! what a brilliant spin. they seem to have taken a lot of culture war stuff and used it as context for the Mole Women plot and it really works. i always thought that was the weakest part of the show but the combination of time & place and astute writing feels like a homerun. and the next episode being a sort of Silicon Valley rip was nice. the emphasis on male dominated spaces in this season is an v interesting approach.

the doc episode was really well done, much as seeing trump in this show upset me a lot

yeah im usually the first person to roll their eyes at yet another take on Trump but it was v effective here, the editing and placement was well done.

the doc had a real sinister feeling while not being too OTT, like here is the horror of the mundane reality

oh the trump and mra stuff was integrated so well, i should say. i was just upset

also i did not get that dj fingablast was a callback to an earlier episode and it blew my miiiiind

lol at the By Mennen subtitle in episode 2

i finished the first 6 episodes last night. this was really awesome. Tina Fey still rules.

It’s just one of the many ways I’m stronger than Beyoncé
Otm

David cross is totally hit or miss tho

This shows pretty nihilistic tho. Rich people obviously hate themselves

This shows pretty nihilistic tho. Rich people obviously hate themselves

― Slippage (Ross)

poor people hate themselves too, they just don't have as many tv shows to do it on

i dont see a nihilism at all. all the characters have things they value, they seek out and create meaning according to their unique moral codes. esp. Kimmy's moral journey in confronting the sinister aspects of society thru her particular bg.

unless you meant "nihilistic" as just a blanket loose term that more or less fits any commercial entertainment.

none of these characters hate themselves either. Kimmy is pretty confident in her own experience (loved the touch of having her object to the women in the cage in Titus's play). Titus is basically in love w himself. Lillian is a one-woman Marx Bros. steadfast in her pursuit of anarchism and forever against authority.

Love this show but nobody apaaks lije this

Rich people are bored, what left to afford?

Honestly I bailed on season 2 cuz it. Sucked. This season is better

This snow insults your character tho. “CIA invented aids “
This show is very incensire

Every line is disingenious as fuck

Enjoy if you like millennial pablum caca.

the hard man who saw a bit too much of himself in the mockumentary episode has logged on, everyone

This show is very incensire

Every line is disingenious as fuck

hah no way. Kimmy speaks her mind pretty clearly. there is a ton of here just outright confronting that MRA guy and telling people what she thinks. Lillian as well. Titus holds nothing back. i did love this line of his:

"If you children truly are the future, I say call the Terminators".

This snow insults your character tho

what does this mean? what is "your character"?

Titus will say that negative statement above as something he says in the moment. later he realizes he was wrong.

Kimmy also says she would never be in his play and then changes her mind. this is character growth and it only akes them more real to see them grappling w stuff, maybe failing, maybe changing their minds.

the rocks in the backpack scene made me feel a particular combo of laugh/cry that was like being pulled apart by opposite emotions

Wait, this is the last season?!

Yep.

Ignore me I had a bad spell. I like this season a lot.

It’s like a live action cartoon to me

Oh Maura I’m sorry. I’m not a tough guy.

Not at all

The writing is super sharp on this show

I bailed on this after four episodes of S1 (I didn't hate it, but found it a bit headache-inducingly relentless), but now my daughters have discovered it and I'm back onboard. My 13yo, in particular, is in raptures. Some of the jokes go over their heads... I HOPE.

Loved this season. Developer Lilian relationship was nice, kimmy was awesome this season n Titus always rules

nine years ago i went to see the broadway revival of GUYS AND DOLLS, which was mostly sad and perplexing – lauren graham played adelaide like a simpleton, the sets looked cheap, etc – and the clear standout of the night was 'sit down you're rockin' the boat,' which was performed in this amazing revival-tent style. because the play was not great (and the circumstances surrounding my seeing it were even worse, sigh), it took me until last weekend to realize that tituss burgess had been nicely-nicely johnson. in retrospect: duh! the only video of him performing it that i could find is a 2009 tonys performance which opens with a microphone screwup, but hoo boy does it right itself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7gU_e8wlNE

anyway i hope netflix is hard at work on developing its 'tituss in anything he wants to do' category. i guess the final batch of episodes isn't airing until january. this show has become my comfort food show and i still wring new jokes out of it every time

Cool story! I just saw Titus in a commercial as well

I just realized two weeks ago that I went to high school with James Monroe INglehart, who plays Titus' rival Coriolanus Burt; in fact, I knew him and we were in German class together for three years. I never, ever would have recognized him though if my old german teacher hadn't posted a photo with him (he's doing Hamilton now).

good find :)

Ellie Kemper used to write (headlines) for the Onion!

https://www.avclub.com/ellie-kemper-on-her-journey-from-onion-headlines-to-kim-1829587017

One week till the premiere, the trailer doesn't look promising but I don't think any of the seasons were well done by their trailers.

OK the orange protuberance in the second ep is NSFL.

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