One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” is certainly a startling example of this. Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, the dynamic duo behind “30 Rock” and one of the best “Saturday Night Live” runs in decades, concocted the idea for “Kimmy Schmidt” based off of the horrible events of the Ariel Castro kidnappings.
NBC got ahold of the idea and ordered a straight-to-series season run of the show, only to decide against running the show after they had seen it. They later sold a two-season order to Netflix in a move that should go down infamy alongside the likes of HBO passing on “Breaking Bad” and the Leno/Conan fiasco of 2010 — another of NBC’s not-so-shining moments.
The set-up is absurd, beginning with the phenomenal Ellie Kemper’s Kimmy Schmidt being freed from a doomsday bunker where she was kidnapped and held hostage by a demented reverend (Jon Hamm) for fifteen years. After a media trip to New York City, she decides to stay and experience the world at its nadir in the city that never sleeps.
The show is not weighed down by these odd confines however. Instead, it wields the seemingly constraining premise masterfully, utilizing it as a source for jokes and deeper characterization through hilarious flashbacks and non sequiturs delivered by Kemper.
Like its predecessor, the show has incredibly outlandish characters who exist far past any believable reality. However, these cartoon-like people manage to be incredibly human, with very identifiable desires and fears simply caricatured for comedic purposes.
The show then packs these well-crafted characters into semi-pedestrian sitcom plots with a few little twists, allowing laugh-out-loud insanity to ensue. It is a darling display of sustainable comedy where the characters — not stories or events — generate the laughs.
These characters include the almost offensively stereotypical gay roommate, Titus (Tituss Burgess), who despite being funny could certainly give some pause, as well as Schmidt’s sidesplittingly sketchy landlord Lillian (Carol Kane).
The regular character, however, has been featured before. In “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” Fey and Carlock brought back Jane Krakowski as a character cut from the same cloth as Jenna Maroney from “30 Rock.” Krakowski plays Kimmy’s boss, a comically wealthy mother of two terrible children, whom Kimmy babysits. Krakowski’s character, Mrs. Voorhees, is consistently hysterical as a continual barb at the rich in a way reminiscent of the late, great “Suburgatory,” while still maintaining a genuinely emotional arc for her character.
The DNA of Fey and Carlock’s former creation clearly runs through "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” Similar to “30 Rock,” it packs an incredible number of high-quality jokes into frantically paced half-hour episodes.
The show and its leading actor emit a unique charm that makes the show delightfully fresh. Kimmy is adorable, naive and lovable, but also confident and competent. She is a truly strong female character and one of the most unique on television — or rather, on the internet.
The best part of “Kimmy Schmidt” though is its potential. Even in the face of network TV constraints, the show has reached a very high level of quality and sits poised to improve. .
The already-ordered second season of this show will surely cater to its viewing style and will be able to take a look at edgier topics—there are surely more jokes to be made, stemming from Kimmy’s exclamation, “Yes, there was weird sex stuff in the bunker!” The made-for-Netflix season two is very promising in thought.
“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” is simply a wonderful show because it navigates well the difficulties of a strange premise. It contains crazy characters who still somehow feel relatable. The show is a tightrope walk between the realistic and the ridiculous.
Every minute of the show is smile-inducing, from the super catchy “Songify the News” style theme song to even the smallest of the supremely talented guest appearances. Everyone should get in on the ground floor of this amazing show that is only destined to get better. Netflix found a veritable bounty in NBC’s scraps, and the result of the streaming service’s dumpster-diving deserves an astounding amount of appreciation.
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