TV Reviews: Danger 5, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Backstrom reprise

Danger 5 is either the most brilliant comedy ever broadcast on television, or the worst piece of alleged entertainment ever perpetrated by human beings.  The thing is, I can’t tell which. 

Danger 5 is an Australian series that is a cross between the Zucker/Abrams/Zucker film Top Secret and a live action version of Team America: World Police but with worse special effects.  The plot, and I am not making this up, is about a team of five agents in the present day who fight Nazis and have an on-going assignment to assassinate Adolph Hitler, whose army includes talking dogs.  Oh, and the “person” giving out the assignments is a man with the head of an eagle.  And in the first episode there is a bear playing a piano (not well, apparently his tempo is off, but still it’s a bear).  Also, the Statue of Liberty has rockets and can fly. 

This all plays out like a demented Monty Python sketch was written at 3 AM by a group of ADD patients on drugs.  The team members (I’m a little vague on the names and national origins) speak different languages (conveniently subtitled for English-speaking audiences) but understand one another.  The talking Nazi dogs would be impressive if they weren’t easily fooled by a robot pseudo-canine built by the Danger 5 team.  The second episode features Nazi dinosaurs, so it isn’t likely that sanity will be taking over anytime soon.

Danger 5 is streaming on Netflix.  If absurdist comedy is your thing, it doesn’t get more absurdist than this.

Update: I finished the six episodes of season 1 of Danger 5 and started watching season 2, which seems to have come after a three year hiatus (season 1 says 2012, season 2 is dated 2015).  Not surprisingly, there is a huge drop off in quality.  It's not because they replaced one of the five lead actors, because frankly changing the French agent from a Caucasian actor to a . . . African Australian (?) one is actually funnier than anything else in season 2.  Season one was outrageous, but it operated in an internally consistent universe.  In Season 2 they are just throwing anything against the wall and hoping something sticks.  This is not a surprise, as that kind of controlled lunacy would be difficult to replicate after a couple of years had passed.  Still, it is a disappointment.

Meanwhile, in the slightly saner world, Netflix unveiled its latest comedy, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (I keep wanting to add a “The” to the title, like The Unsinkable Molly Brown).  Not surprisingly, given that it is co-created and produced by Tina Fey, it is smart and funny.  I never “got” 30 Rock, but Kimmy hits the ground running with an absurd premise delivered with touching sincerity.

The plot concerns four women who were held in an underground bunker for 15 years after they were told the world had come to an end by the Reverend Wayne Gary Wayne, leader of a cult that some of the women joined and others were dragooned into.  They are rescued and, naturally, end up on the Today Show.  After the show is over one of the women (known by the unflattering epithet “The Indiana Mole Women”) looks out at New York City from the shuttle back to either the hotel or the airport and decides she wants to make it in The Big Apple.  Kimmy Schmidt (Ellie Kemper) exits the van with a backpack holding $13,000 (guess how long that lasts in New York City) and determination not to been known only as a victim.

In typical sitcom style, within 24 hours Kimmy has found an apartment (not nearly as nice as the ones on Friends; in fact, she is living in a closet, but after 15 years in a bunker it is a step up) and a well-paying job.  Yes, the apartment comes with a busybody landlady (Carol Kane) and the job has an impossible boss (Jane Krakowski), but she’s doing good for a woman with nearly an eighth grade education who knows nothing of pop culture in the 21^st century.

The show does a nice balancing act, portraying Kimmy as uninformed but not stupid.  Kemper plays her as someone with a perpetual smile but who learned some hard lesson sharing a bunker with three other women for a decade and a half (I assume more details on that experience will be forthcoming).  The story of a naïf in New York City is an old one, but it seems fresh when Kimmy quietly utters “Wheee!” when riding the subway.  It’s too bad NBC passed on this on the grounds that they didn’t have a comedy good enough to team it with (hey, what about Community? Oh yeah, they passed on that too).

Lastly, I wanted to revisit my review of Backstrom.  I discovered after posting my review that the pilot had been developed for CBS and turned down, and then found its way to FOX.  This means the show was in a position to reinvent itself as it saw fit and the pilot was not necessarily indicative of the show’s future course.

Most of the adjustments have been positive.  As I said, they did tone down Backstrom’s misanthropy, while at the same time fleshing out the ensemble.  At times I think they did TOO good a job, as Backstrom sometimes fades into the background.  But the magnificent Dennis Haysbert has been given more to do (someone said during the first season of 24 that he could change his name to David Palmer and run for President and probably win; little did that person know how prophetic that sentiment was) and the remaining cast is at least two-dimensional, with some approaching three dimensions.  Sarah Chalke as Backstrom’s ex-fiancée seems miscast, but I won’t pass up any chance to watch Sarah Chalke, who should have gotten at least a couple of Emmy nominations for Scrubs and was my favorite non-Mother on How I Met Your Mother.

I have officially switched my Thursday at 9 PM priority from Elementary to Backstrom.  I still like Elementary, but the character they call “Sherlock Holmes” is increasingly just a collection of tics and eccentricities.  Lucy Liu is still wonderful, and Johnny Lee Miller's performance is excellent, but the writing just can’t keep up with the pressure of a main character who is nearly omniscient.  Rainn Wilson is no Hugh Laurie (given that Backstrom is essentially a police version of House) but he remains funny enough to give his character some life and some interest.  The show runners at Backstrom have done a good job of course correction; let’s see if they can keep it up.