Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Oddly enough, I finished Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt in a matter of days. I didn't really mean to, my parents mentioned it and said my sister enjoyed it. I was just coming on to Spring Break so I thought, why the hell not?

What I did not know is that Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a show created and produced by Tina Fey.

And suddenly, everything made sense.

While I don't think 30 Rock is the most hilarious show that has ever hit television, I did have a long time where I just binge watched it for hours. I personally love almost everything Tina, and Tracey Morgan do. Alec Baldwin is becoming just a hilarious guy all around in more and more things. Overall 30 Rock has a special place in my heart.

And that's especially true with its style of comedy. I call it, The Fey.

Its a very obscure humor that is very dry and slides in incredibly funny bits that you have to be paying attention to, along with the usual jokes and humor signature to Tina Fey's writing. Overall, she's very good.

And unsurprisingly, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has that same kind of humor.

Unbreakable stars Ellie Kemper (Erin from the Office) as Kimmy Schmidt. At the beginning of the show, her and three other women are rescued from a bunker in which they were held captive by a leader of a cult. (You later figure out, played by Jon Hamm).

The women are instantaneously local celebrities and known as the Indiana Mole Women. They had been in that bunker for 15 years and were not aware of the world that had gone on above them.

Its at this point that Kimmy decides to leave the rest of the group and go and experience life in New York City.

The joke of course throughout the entire show is that she's been living in a bunker for 15 years and doesn't know the intricacies of life in 2015.

Along the way, she becomes roommates with a gay failed actor named Titus (played by Tituss Burgess), gets an insane landlord (played by Jane Carol), and an insecure wealthy trophy wife boss (played by 30 Rock's Jane Krakowski).

Now personally, while I grew to like Tituss Burgess, Jane Carol and Jane Krakowski's characters, I really felt like this show probably should have focused on Kimmy and the other mole women. They really only show up at the beginning and at the end, but that is actually where the show gets very, very good. Kimmy is very much the leader, taking care of the others. There's one mole woman who is indoctrinated by their captor, one mole woman who doesn't speak English, and another who can't really make decisions for herself.

I get why they wanted to focus on Kimmy going out into New York, but I almost feel like her with the other 3 was where a lot of the comic gold was.

The best way I can describe this show to someone would be to say, "You know Erin from the Office, well imagine that exact character, don't change anything about her, got locked in a bunker for 15 years and started working for Jenna Maroney from 30 Rock, also don't change anything about her, and had a gay roommate.

For me I think the show had a lot of elements going for it, and a lot of elements running against it.

While I like the actor Titus Burgess, I'm not totally sure I really liked Titus as a character. He just always seemed like the over the top gay man which, don't get me wrong, this stereotype does exist, but I think the time of that being incredibly funny has passed.

The show also had some oddly racial central jokes that while I don't think were trying to be offensive, or were being more satirical than anything, maybe didn't land as well as they could have. Its kind of like Get Hard, I don't know if the show is incredibly bold for making such odd and offensive jokes, or they're just dumb and trying to be bold.

And then they really wanted to drive home the fact that Jane Krakowski is actually Native American...

I mean... c'mon

But I think the fact of the matter is that Tina Fey has always been restrained by network television, maybe it was time for her to go a little bit farther than usual for her jokes. Some of them went just the right amount farther... others, not so much.

I think a prime example of this was her and Jerry Minor playing the prosecutors of the Reverend near the end of the series. 

In reading more about the series, the joke is that these two are incompetent and supposedly trying to satirize the lawyers in the OJ Simpson trial. 

I'm not exactly sure what OJ Simpson has to do with prosecuting the leader of a cult and I really don't think this bit worked. I was getting really excited for Fey's cameo... and it just didn't really work out for me. I just didn't think these two were funny. 

So again, I think Fey has moments where she's very good in this series, and especially times where she's very clever. I read an article on how this show is kind of bringing back humor from Arrested Development where there is the humor for those just casually watching, and then there's the humor you have to look for and I actually really like that comedy. 

Do I think Unbreakable is going to get renewed for a second season? Maybe? I mean personally I'd like to see some more Arrested Development on Netflix, especially to make up for that fourth season, but I would probably watch another 13 episodes. That was a nice thing, the season went by really quick and I didn't feel like it was overly long or too short. It felt just right. So for me, if Unbreakable doesn't get renewed, I'm not going to cry over it. I think it did what it set out to do and I think it did it pretty well. I'll actually probably go back and watch it once more in the near future just to catch onto the jokes I missed, but overall, I'm not gonna rave about this show. I think 30 Rock was a little bit better. 

But what do you think? Comment and Discuss below and let me know what you thought of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt? Or you can shoot me a message on Twitter @MovieSymposium and follow me to get more updates on movie/tv news and reviews. 

I'll leave you with this. Of course, I couldn't finish this review without talking about the theme song. Put every criticism aside, I love the opening theme to this show. The cool thing is, it was created by the same guys who do Autotune the News. And personally I love it when there are success stories of guys just having fun on the internet. And they really did a good job with this theme. I still go back every once in a while and listen to it. Here is the theme, Enjoy!