Murderville

Murderville isn’t remotely a murder mystery, or even a parody of a murder mystery. But it offers a fresh take on improvisational comedy, one of the few underrepresented subgenres in today’s television landscape.

Arnett’s flexibility and playfulness are key to making Murderville work, but strong celebrity casting is what keeps its fairly predictable shtick from getting boring. Murderville manages to be as adaptable as its players.

The new Netflix comedy series, “Murderville,” isn’t wall-to-wall laughs, but it has enough funny moments that it’s worth a look. The material is lukewarm, but the comic talent is outstanding, and it’s fun watching the actors working off one another, improvising bits.

When everything melds together on Murderville, with the guests feeling like part of the troupe instead of a name air-dropped in, it’s a very enjoyable watch. When the celebs aren’t a great fit, it’s up to Arnett and the cast to keep everything going, and they often do.

While the mysteries are silly enough to keep the celebrities entertained on set, it’s up to how well the celebrities adapt to each increasingly ridiculous scenario to keep their viewers engaged, too.

That a duo or group of performers can collectively improvise even a semicoherent story on the fly, where none existed minutes before, is half the magic. The “Murderville” setup stymies so much of this, which is why guest selection is vital. If only everyone were working at Stone’s level.

Mediocre comedy is depressing to watch, but mediocre improvisation is excruciating, and almost every Murderville scene is torturous cringe. Arnett just doesn’t have the skills: he is unable to drive the action with any authority, corpses far too often, and has a knack for throwing his guests lines to which there can be no amusing answer.

Will Arnett stars as homicide detective Terry Seattle in this unique hybrid of improv comedy and murder mystery. Each week, he's gets a case with a new assistant. The catch is, everyone's in on the script EXCEPT the guests and they have to fake their way thru the investigation. Arnett has created his character as a cocky, over-the-top loser and if you like his style, that's half the battle. Then come the stars: Conan OBrian and Sharon Stone were the standouts, not only because they managed to keep up with the wacky proceedings, but they didn't break character to laugh at the craziness. Even though the others were more amused (Ken Jeong, Marshawn Lynch, Kumail Nanjani and Annie Murphy), they all had moments to shine. Each episode is short and moves spritely, so it's easy, entertaining silliness. (Six 30-minute episodes)

Murderville comes to show you once again that COVID-19 has badly impacted the film industry. Bad acting, a horrible plot which makes no sense on top of dry, horrible jokes makes this series a horrifying watch.

"Murderville" (S01, 6eps, 1/2hr, Netflix) is simply just more of the Covid-era, low budget junk that Netflix and others keep throwing at us. It's a concept with potential but its execution is just awful. Will Arnett sounds like a tween trying to speak like an adult as grisled detective Terry Seattle. Seriously, he's trying to channel Wilfred Brimley, Sam Elliott, and Kevin Costner all at once but it's a big fail. Haneefah Wood as ex-wife Chief Rhonda Seattle is obviously channelling Niecy Nash, and what a bold move Netflix to show us yet another mixed race couple, that's just soooo progressive of you, wow. And his vaunted guest stars just phone in their tepid performances, it's cringe-watch tv. No way this gets a second season, even though it costs nothing to produce.