Schmigadoon!

Overall, it’s difficult to pinpoint Schmigadoon!’s intentions. It doesn’t offer a new narrative like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend or impressively catchy tracks like Netflix’s Julie And The Phantoms. It doesn’t tap into the real potential of its seasoned cast like 30 Rock or Portlandia, nor does it have anything new to say for or against musicals, in general. But if you’re looking for something breezy in which to escape the world’s heaviness for a song or two, Schmigadoon! is a watchable enough option.

The series perhaps inevitably drags in the middle, a little too self-satisfied with the premise and its cleverness in evoking the past.

It is certainly likable in its parts, and in its performances, and in that it acknowledges there was musical theater before Disney took over 42nd Street. ... But the book doesn’t sing, even if the actors do. Jokes fall flat. It’s conceptually muddy, magically themed yet somehow lacking magic, schematic but illogical — a charge against which “Schmigadoon!” preemptively defends itself.

Strong and Key are both very solid anchors for the story, though there are moments where they’re treating the material as an extended sketch, not a naturally occurring world. Everybody sings with enthusiasm and leaps into the choreography with the best of intentions. ... I just needed more from Schmigadoon! than “Hey, we love that thing you love!” camaraderie. I do love that thing. I just wish I liked this thing more.

It comes to life in bursts, leading one to hope that it will cohere into something more daring and complex around the next toe-tapping corner, but then it recedes back to the surface, afraid to really engage with any of its ideas about love, relationships, or even classic musicals. Sure, it’s fun, but it’s almost more disposable than the broadly goofy stage plays that it parodies.

So much talent was involved in bringing to the screen a show that ought to have been a home run. There’s something miscalibrated about “Schmigadoon!” After having borrowed quite so heavily from traditional forms, the show only haltingly and gradually, and without much of the help that the neglected Key and Strong might have provided, arrives at something that can stand on its own.