The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt ran for four seasons from 2015 until 2019 and followed the adventures of a young woman recently released from fifteen years of kidnap in an underground bunker by a delusional reverend, intent on convincing his victims that the world outside had become an apocalyptic dystopia. Despite the dark and twisted set up for this series, this Netflix original sitcom is actually incredibly bright and vibrant and relatively inoffensive or black in its humour, following a similar style to the ever popular The Good Place.
…Kimmy Schmidt produces most of the show’s truly funny moments from it’s larger than life characters. There’s the titular character, Kimmy, who offers a naïve and optimistic outlook on life, often seeing the best in people even when they are obviously out to fulfil their own selfish ends. Despite her years of abuse at the hands of the preacher, she never became broken due to her circumstances. Despite her lack of academic abilities and knowledge of how the real world works, she still believes in Santa Claus at the age of twenty-nine, she is a character that always manages to make the audience smile.
Kimmy Schmidt marks yet another win for Netflix’s prowess in original sitcoms
Supporting characters include the ridiculous thirty year old aspiring actor, Titus Andromedon, a gay man who has spent his life lacking wealth under the assumption that he will one day make it in New York as an incredible actor or musical talent of some kind. Despite some the humour around Titus being seemingly random and ridiculous, it’s Titus’ facial reactions to the increasingly odd events in his life that really add to the humour of the show and makes actor Tituss Burgess a real credit to the cast.
Another asset to the cast is Lillian, Kimmy and Titus’ criminal landlord who assures them they are renting a real apartment rather than a converted tugboat, with icing used for wallpaper paste. Lilian embodies the humour around the old, caring New Yorker who loves the city but prefers it to be kept in an imperfect but authentic state rather than being shaped by hipsters and gentrification. Her endeavours to stop this growing technological progress taking over New York almost always fail, with her once chaining herself to a construction vehicle for a week to then realise that they weren’t starting work for another month.
Despite the context for some of the episodes being quite generic and mundane, it’s the combination of these three main characters who really make the show worth watching. Despite its flaws The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt marks yet another win for Netflix’s prowess in original sitcoms, here’s hoping there’s more shows like this to come.
