- Network: IFC , IFC - Independent Film Channel
- Series Premiere Date: Jan 21, 2011
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Critic Reviews
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Brownstein and Armisen move so effortlessly between characters, then execute their riffs, tics, styles and voices with such skilled abandon that before long this doesn't seem like satire any longer but a fun house mirror reflection of intensely real people.
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Knowing but not pretentious, snarky but not sneering, Portlandia succeeds both as farce and as faithful representation of a population for whom the dream--of the '90s or anything else, for that matter--is still alive.
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The series is a better-heeled, better-paced and, within the bounds of its own Portland-ish modesty, a more ambitious extension of the occasional videos that Armisen and Portland resident Brownstein have posted online over the past few years under the name ThunderAnt.
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Armisen and Browstein's masterstroke is showing how certain flavors of modern leftist sensitivity/engagement can seem (to outsiders) like passive-aggressive self-absorption laced with contempt for the unenlightened.
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Feb 22, 2011Is this hipster-lampooning sketch show a little too cool for school (or, more appropriately, too cool for postgraduate-juggling studies)? Maybe. But there are funny moments, too.
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While the first two episodes of Portlandia are hit-and-miss, its good-natured satire generally hits, as they say, pretty close to home.
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Often Ms. Brownstein, wide-eyed and sincere, gets the best of Mr. Armisen, who's been exaggerating characters for so long on "Saturday Night Live" that it's tough for him to capture the understatement of these caricatures.
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Like any sketch comedy show, IFC's Portlandia has hit-and-miss sketches, but when they hit, they do so with a laughter-inducing amount of comedic force.
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Despite the fact that Portlandia features different sketches in each episode, the show already begins to feel like a stretch by the second show.
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Portlandia, a vanity project from "Saturday Night Live's" Fred Armisen that plays like an awful night at the Groundlings, or worse, a collection of the most uninspired sketches from "SNL's" final half-hour.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 69 out of 88
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Mixed: 10 out of 88
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Negative: 9 out of 88
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Jan 21, 2011
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Feb 25, 2011
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Jan 5, 2012