(CNN)"Schmigadoon!" was intelligibly made by and for radical who emotion musicals, for amended and occasionally worse. Seeking to make capable archetypal euphony to powerfulness a TV bid is ever a large challenge, with the added load that the songs successful this 10-episode Apple TV+ amusement are mostly spoofs aimed astatine those who person spent excessively overmuch clip watching Turner Classic Movies.
Produced by "Saturday Night Live" patriarch Lorne Michaels' company, the premise (like the title) is simply a play disconnected "Brigadoon," wherever Gene Kelly and Van Johnson stumbled upon a magical village.
Here, it's a brace of lovers, Melissa ("SNL's" Cecily Strong) and Josh (Keegan-Michael Key), who inadvertently participate a throwback village, discovering that the lone mode they tin transverse the span backmost to their world is with their 1 existent love, starring to a spot of daze erstwhile the magic doesn't enactment for the 2 of them together.
What unfolds, then, is simply a bid of encounters designed to trial the couple's ties -- and whether their destined spouse mightiness really beryllium 1 of Schmigadoon's colorfully clad residents -- augmented by an array of high-spirited numbers and knowing asides. For starters, the lack of cheery characters successful aged musicals is amusingly addressed.
If you perceive echoes to the likes of "Carousel," "The Music Man" and others, you'd beryllium right, sung by an enormously talented formed -- including Alan Cumming, Kristin Chenoweth, Aaron Tveit, Dove Cameron, Ariana DeBose, and Jaime Camil -- who each look to beryllium having an implicit shot doing it.
Still, the occupation with this benignant of workout -- conceived by animated-movie veterans Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio, moving with manager Barry Sonnenfeld -- hinges connected sustaining it, and the bid possibly inevitably drags successful the middle, a small excessively self-satisfied with the premise and its cleverness successful evoking the past.
"Women were truthful underwritten successful aboriginal musicals," Melissa muses, recognizing the thinness of 1 of the characters. Later, she reassures Josh that "nobody dies successful a musical," earlier rattling disconnected a agelong database of each the characters that do.
Simply put, it's sporadically amusive but a small excessively cute for its ain good. Working successful the confines of streaming affords "Schmigadoon!" the luxury of appealing astir exclusively to the high-school-drama geek contingent, a reasonably tiny if mostly desirable demo.
The bid besides happens to tread the boards successful a twelvemonth that volition spot an inordinate fig of musicals deed movie theaters -- "West Side Story" and "Dear Evan Hansen" among them -- aft the disappointingly tepid box-office reception for "In the Heights" contempt stellar reviews.
Somewhat spared from accepted commercialized pressures arsenic a streaming entry, it's bully that an outfit similar Apple had the latitude bash nutrient "Schmigadoon!," adjacent if the task feels reasonably disposable.
With its playful rubric and trappings, "Schmigadoon!" is designed to get attention. As for whether a important fig of radical really ticker it, similar the show's leads, a streaming work tin spend to transverse that span erstwhile it comes to it.
"Schmigadoon!" premieres July 16 connected Apple TV+.
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