If you’ve already watched every episode of brilliant sitcoms “30 Rock” and “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” — possibly multiple times — there’s another clever, highly entertaining sitcom from producers Tina Fey and Robert Carlock that fits in perfectly with those two popular favorites, ready to binge on Netflix.
The two-season NBC sitcom “Great News” never got the acclaim or the fan following of those earlier Fey/Carlock productions, and it’s about to leave Netflix without much fanfare. That means you have until September 27 to catch one of the most underrated TV comedies of the past decade.
"Great News" is streaming on Netflix
“Great News” was created by Tracey Wigfield, who spent time as a writer and producer on “30 Rock” and brings a similar comedic style to her own show. Like “30 Rock,” “Great News” is a workplace sitcom set in the world of TV, with a female protagonist who struggles to assert herself in her professional and personal lives. Katie Wendelson (Briga Heelan) is a producer on the mid-level cable news show “The Breakdown,” whose mother Carol (Andrea Martin) becomes her co-worker when she’s hired as the show’s latest intern.
‘Great News’ is full of memorable oddball characters
The mother-daughter dynamic at the center of “Great News” is a familiar sitcom set-up, with the overbearing Carol micro-managing every aspect of her daughter’s life, unable to let Katie stand on her own. But Wigfield and the other writers stay away from the obvious approach, and the relationship between Katie and Carol is warm and supportive rather than shrill and antagonistic, despite their clashes.
The first episode introduces them talking on the phone continuously during Katie’s entire morning routine and commute to work, and while their closeness is sometimes challenged by their new status as colleagues, the show focuses on their shared eccentricities more than their conflicts.
Katie and Carol are relatively grounded compared to their co-workers at “The Breakdown” and cable news network MMN, and the show had just started building an eclectic ensemble worthy of “30 Rock” or “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” when it ended.
John Michael Higgins brings the same energy from his work on Christopher Guest mockumentaries to the role of pompous, out-of-touch news anchor Chuck Pierce, and Martin draws on her decades of comedy experience as the daffy but well-meaning Carol. The biggest surprise, though, is reality-TV staple Nicole Richie as Chuck’s vapid co-anchor Portia Scott-Griffith, showing a talent for comedy that’s self-deprecating but not smarmy.
Fey herself has a recurring role in the second season as the network’s hard-charging new president, essentially taking on the role of confident corporate mentor that Alec Baldwin played as Jack Donaghy on “30 Rock,” with Katie in place of Fey’s floundering Liz Lemon.
Wigfield plays weirdly intense meteorologist Beth Vierk, giving herself some of the show’s most unhinged lines, and “Saturday Night Live” veterans Ana Gasteyer and Rachel Dratch are perfect as the “Great News” equivalents of boozy morning-show hosts Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford. Even a version of Yuko, the awkward, ubiquitous robot from “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” makes an appearance.
The humor in ‘Great News’ is off-kilter and hilarious
“Great News” is less satirical than “30 Rock” and less outlandish than “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” but it’s still full of surreal cutaways and quirky jokes, without losing its core sweetness. Similar to other Fey/Carlock shows, “Great News” rewards rewatching because it’s so dense with jokes, like an entire storyline of the pregnant Beth going into labor that plays out in the background of the final episode. “Great News” gets a lot of mileage out of skewering bombastic cable news, but it’s more about taking offbeat detours than delivering social commentary.
Maybe the premise seemed too much like an old-fashioned sitcom for fans of Fey and Carlock’s previous work, or maybe there wasn’t enough star power in the cast, or maybe NBC just didn’t promote “Great News” very well — much as Netflix hasn’t. Whatever the reason, viewers didn’t show up for “Great News” when it first aired in 2017 and 2018, but there’s time now to make up for that.
It’s a consistently funny show that builds heartwarming relationships without seeming sappy, always quick with a savage quip to undercut any sentimentality. Like “Girls5eva,” another hilarious Fey/Carlock series languishing on Netflix, “Great News” is tailor-made for fans of the duo’s sensibility, and all they need to do is give it chance.
