Schmigadoon!

The narratological space that the music in a musical film occupies—where its characters appear to be unaware that they are engaging in musical performance—is about as fraught as the stylistic inclusion of the exclamation point in Schmigadoon!’s title. That is to say, it’s inconclusive, a bit syntactically awkward, and its purpose and inclusion is subject to one’s opinion on the matter.

What distinguishes Schmigadoon!, then, is how it plays into that narratological quandary. Its protagonists (Keegan Michael Key and Cecily Strong) serve as proximal observers to the world of a musical. In a fairytale twist, the conceit is that they’re trapped in such a world until they find true love.

The style is lifted from Golden Age musicals (think from the 1930s to the 1950s, such as The Wizard of Oz), and in particular the 1947 Broadway musical Brigadoon by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.

In terms of the edit, it borrows from the approach of many a comedy trailer with the music pausing for the protagonists’ one-liners, such as at 0:54 or 1:04. There’s also a bit of sync around 1:10 as the cast’s names come up, while the harmony follows a chromatically rising pattern. A montage cut at 1:22 appropriately serves as a climax.

Whether the setup can sustain a series or if it turns out to be too novel in nature remains to be seen. Still, turning the diegetic quagmire that is the film musical inside out by specifically drawing attention to its curious nature is a fairly refreshing approach to comedy, at least in this trailer form. Balancing that is its opportunity as well as its challenge: In a February interview with Deadline, series creator Cinco Paul noted how there is “a whole tone to the show, which is both real but very theatrical”, and “a deconstruction of the musical”. While the trailer reasonably doesn’t get too far into what this could mean, it does successfully propose the prospect of comedy through narratological disconnection.

Schimagoon! arrives on Apple TV Plus on July 16th as a six-episode series.

— Curtis Perry