Tina Fey Makes Sitcoms Great Again
REVIEW: ‘Girls5eva’
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Tina Fey didn t write
Girls5eva, the new Peacock series about a 1990s girl group trying to stage a comeback. But she serves as the show s executive producer, and her fingerprints are all over it.
Fey and
Girls5eva creator Meredith Scardino seem to have learned from the failings of their last show, Netflix s
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Like many early streaming sitcoms,
Kimmy Schmidt was often confused and gimmicky.
Girls5eva, meanwhile, is reminiscent of Fey s best work on
30 Rock. Focused and enjoyable but free from network censors,
Girls5eva shows what streaming sitcoms can do.
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The uniquely titled musical sitcom “Girls5eva” is the brainchild of Meredith Scardino, a three-time Emmy-winning writer for the “The Colbert Report” and three-time Emmy nominee for her work on “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” and its subsequent TV movie.
The energetic Peacock series stars Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Busy Philipps and Paula Pell as members of a briefly popular 1990s girl group called Girls5eva because, as their wondrous one-hit and the show’s earworm of a theme song “Famous 5eva” explains it, “4eva is too short.” The quirky quartet unexpectedly reunites 20 years later after a popular rapper samples them and creates renewed interest and, well, time has not been kind. Heartfelt absurdity ensues.