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- Netflix
- Feb 3, 2022
- Netflix
- Feb 3, 2022
Summary In this adaptation of the British series, Murder in Successville, each episode features Homicide Detective Terry Seattle (Will Arnett) with a new murder case and a new guest star as his partner. With no script, Kumail Nanjiani, Conan O'Brien, Annie Murphy, Sharon Stone, Ken Jeong, and Marshawn Lynch must improvise and try to figure out t...
- Netflix
- Feb 3, 2022
- Netflix
- Feb 3, 2022
Summary In this adaptation of the British series, Murder in Successville, each episode features Homicide Detective Terry Seattle (Will Arnett) with a new murder case and a new guest star as his partner. With no script, Kumail Nanjiani, Conan O'Brien, Annie Murphy, Sharon Stone, Ken Jeong, and Marshawn Lynch must improvise and try to figure out t...
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Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 17 Critic Reviews
65
65% Positive
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
35% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 17 Critic Reviews
65
65% Positive
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
35% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
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.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 19 User Ratings
5.8
53% Positive
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
11% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
37% Negative
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 19 User Ratings
5.8
53% Positive
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
11% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
37% Negative
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
Each episode sees eccentric detective Terry Seattle (Will Arnett) team up with a celebrity guest to investigate a murder. The twist? The celebrity guest has no script and must improvise their way through everything that's thrown at them.
Some episodes work better than others, but overall Murderville provides plenty of laughs, quite often for the cast as well as the viewer!
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SEASON 1
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.
If your all time favorite SNL sketch is the Debbie Downer Disneyland sketch, then you'll loove Murderville. Imported from a BBC series (much like Who's Line Is It Anyway, those Brits love the improv), Murderville stars a very game Will Arnett as detective Terry Seattle. Slightly grizzled, with a great cop mustache, Seattle is intrusted with a new "trainee" at the start of each episode. That trainee just happens to be a celebrity like Conan O'Brien or Annie Murphy, who is thrown, unscripted, into a murder investigation. Three suspects are introduced and the celebrity trainee, along with the audience, has to figure out the murderer. So it has elements of improv comedy and a game show mashed together. The comedy comes from the investigation and the hoops that Arnett/Seattle puts their partners through. And of course, breaking. Or desperately trying not to break. And credit to Arnett for orchestrating the improv, forcing the celebrities to behave like a rowdy audience in an improv club. His forcing Kameel Nujami (forgive my spelling) to walk "cool", keeping upping the ante, till he walks like a lumbering fool is typical. So much fun.
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SEASON 1
Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to love the show, I simply didn't enjoy a single thing about it.
Whilst Arnett tries hard and delivers his scripted material well, the premise never really worked in any of the episodes I watched, swinging between cringe worthy discomfort, and simple boredom.
The first episode, for example, has Conan as the unscripted guest, and throughout the entire episode he is constantly taking everything that Arnett says personally and in return giving no humour, a masked smile and trite responses. Stone, similarly, doesn't want to engage and gives the audience nothing other than 'I don't want to be here but I'll respond if I must' "improv".
"Okay, but surely the comedians must be better" I hear you say, but no, not really. Nanjiani is like Conan, a fixed smile throughout, with a look like he'd rather be anywhere else, barely hidden, whilst giving zero invention to the cause.
Ken Jeong, at least, seems to want to be there, but even his episode gives nothing to the audience to enjoy, beyond a few of Arnett's scripted moments. Perhaps surprisingly, Marshawn Lynch (being english, this is someone I'd never heard of but he's apparently a rugby player, or something) gives the best performance of any guest, being either an extremely quick wit or else coming prepared with a wealth of one-liners, up his sleeve. Unfortunately, even a good guest doesn't elevate the show very much and rather highlights the major flaw with the show, in that it's an incredibly structured buddy-cop set up. This is a cliche that has run and run for so long, now, that even unscripted spoofs of the genre are so plodding and predictable that it's even a dull background watch.
If murderville does make it back for a second season, the best thing that could happen for the audience is a complete scenario change. This one is played out.
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SEASON 1
bad
[ bad ]
adjective, worse, worst;(Slang) bad·der, bad·dest for 36.
not good in any manner or degree.
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SEASON 1
Murderville will go down as one of the 'comedy shows' with the least amount of jokes. After the few good jokes (around 2-3) are finished, for the rest of the season you are given to jokes, no interesting developments and crude humour. The worst thing is the horrible plot which makes no sense to improvise. Add to that, horrible writing and acting and you get this series.
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SEASON 1
I really liked the idea behind this, but in the end, it's just a showcase to trot out guest stars. It's like Who's Murder Is It. Improv is great, but I got tired of it quick in the first episode. No for me.
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SEASON 1