“Schmigdon!”. What a bad name for the series, oh God. Sorry, we know it’s a weird thing to start with, it’s just really hard to ignore in the story of this really cute series. The name is a barrier. In fact, we have a theory that one of the reasons that “Schmigdon!” Didn’t catch it yet, it’s because of the bad name. Yes, he has a reason – the magical town that gave the name to the series is named after an old musical that almost no one except movie geeks remembers – and it’s really a nice gesture, but when the first season of the series went up on the Apple TV streaming service, a lot of people missed it. And it’s a pity.
“Shmigdon!” is an original, colorful, fun, funny and talented series built as a tribute (and also a bit of a parody) to the musical genre, and specifically, the cinematic musical. A newly married couple gets lost on a trip and finds himself in a magical town that operates according to the rules of the musical – that is, the milkman may break into an exciting song at any moment. Oh yes. There is also dairy. The fantastical scenario certainly makes for a fun (if not entirely stable) story, and the excellent cast (led by Keegan Michael Key and Cecily Strong, but also with Alan Cumming, Kristin Chenoweth and more) executes the musicality of the thing to perfection. A hidden gem of cute TV.
Now, with the arrival of the second season (the first two episodes were uploaded to Apple TV today), we hope it will fulfill its potential. According to the trailers at least, the series makes an interesting decision and changes the genre of musicals in the city, as well as its name (calm down, it’s not a much better name) – if in the first season we got tributes to the classic Hollywood musicals, this season they will advance to the dark and complex musicals of the golden age on Broadway, when the couple was dissected in the city of “Chicago” (a tribute to the musical “Chicago”). Besides, Titus Burgers and Jane Krakowski (“Kimmy Schmidt”) have also been added to the busy cast, and we are already dying to sing along with them.
“Schmigdon”, second season, Apple TV