TV Talk: Musicals ‘Schmigadoon,’ ‘Grease’ return on streaming services
Share this post:
Just a few weeks ago, Hulu released the musical romcom “Up Here,” and now we have two more musical series. Don’t get used to it.
While streaming has opened the door to more unusual and/or experimental genres, it’s mostly happenstance that these three musicals debuted within a few weeks of each other.
‘Schmigadoon’
The first season of Apple TV+’s streaming send-up/ode to stage and screen musicals of the 1940s and 1950s was a hilarious and joyful affair. Season two, aping ’60s, ’70s and early ’80s musicals, offers more humor but less joy because that’s just what happens when your inspirations are “Cabaret,” “Carousel,” “Chicago” and “Sweeney Todd.” Season two of “Schmigadoon,” streaming Friday, even has Mel acknowledge the new setting is less fun at the start of episode four.
While season one ended with a happily ever after for Mel (Cecily Strong) and Josh (Keegan Michael Key), after their marriage they start trying to have a baby unsuccessfully, which makes them long for the simple pleasures of their time in Schmigadoon.
They head off to the woods to find Schmigadoon again, but instead stumble into Schmicago where they encounter the same Schmigadoonians who are now playing new characters that do not recognize Mel and Josh.
This time, Mel and Josh get caught up in a murder mystery, although the plot is generally thinner this season and just an excuse to hang songs on.
Early stand-out numbers include new narrator Tituss Burgess crooning a “Pippin”-like anthem, a “Carousel”-like song that’s pretty hilarious in showing how social mores have changed since the 1960s (“Do We Shock You?”) and a showcase for Jane Krakowski as Schmicago’s only lawyer.
Other tracks ape “Hair,” “Company,” “Dreamgirls” and “Jesus Christ Superstar,” but the funniest, most outrageous showstopper is episode four’s blending of “Annie” and “Sweeney Todd” — it’s not just “Yellowjackets” that has cannibalism on the menu!
This second outing of “Schmigadoon” pales a bit compared to season one — too many ballads, not enough big song-and-dance numbers — but, at just six half-hour episodes, there are enough fun winks at Broadway to make it worthwhile for devoted musical theater fans.
‘Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies’
Paramount+ loves its pre-sold titles, which explains the “Fatal Attraction” series coming later this month and this week’s premiere of “Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies,” a prequel that streams Thursday.
Set four years before the events of the 1978 film adaptation of the original Broadway musical, “Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies” offers a feminist take on 1950s high school life.
At the start of the 1954-55 school year at Rydell High (try to look past the modern earthquake bracing on the school’s exterior), smart, well-behaved Jane (Marisa Davila) had a summer fling with nice-guy quarterback Buddy (Jason Schmidt), but she’s unwilling to conform to the social expectations for young women of the era.
There’s too much story crammed into the first episode, which runs almost a full hour and grows tedious despite several high energy song-and-dance numbers, including the first and only number to reprise a song from the movie (“Grease Is the Word”).
By the end of the first episode, the Pink Ladies “girl gang” takes shape.
Future episodes eventually get down to a 42-minute running time — if “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” could deliver 42-minute episodes with musical numbers, “Grease” can, too — which makes for more tightly-constructed episodes.
The cast of largely newcomers — including 2020 Penn State musical theater grad Ari Notartomaso from Wilkes-Barre as tomboy wannabe T-Bird Cynthia — are game for the musical numbers, which, even after the first episode, do not skimp on creativity or scope.
Some of the songs are catchy, but the story and plots fail to surprise and the whole thing is rather humorless. Rehashing old stereotypes and social mores to take them down still feels been-there-done-that even if you set it to music.