Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Through six episodes, Season 3 has shown far less reliance on the past and an invigorating interest in the future. ... We’ve covered a lot of her arrested development, and now it’s time to see what kind of story an adult Kimmy has to tell. So far, it’s a damn good one.

Its sparkly advertising and spastic, yet effective, humor belie a wit and poignancy that continues to resonate as largely peerless to this day.

Season three represents a smarter approach to topical material. Just like its namesake character, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is growing up.

Fey and Carlock constantly keep audience members on their toes, thrusting ideas that sound so wacky they’d never work. And yet they do.

The show is so dense with verbal, visual, and structural jokes, in fact, that it resists binge-watching; after an episode or two, you stop laughing and start just murmuring “funny” like a road-weary comedian. Its glossy surface and ingratiating performances make the show go down easy, but the best parts are the ones that stick in your craw.

Three seasons in, Kemper’s performance has become remarkably nuanced for such a slapsticky, cartoonish creation, and Kimmy Schmidt herself is starting to look like the indomitable figure that the title’s “unbreakable” was always meant to signify.

Don’t worry about its underlying themes too much because three seasons in, the humor in Kimmy Schmidt is still among the sharpest and brainiest on television.

The story of Kimmy Schmidt’s continuing education was bound to get bumpy, but it remains entertaining, and season 3 has every chance to graduate with honors.

The show still has its usual wacky appeal, dialed-up performances, and rapid-fire jokes that come and go so quickly that they all but require a rewatch. ... But through the first half of Season 3, there’s just the sense that the show could use a shake-up—some dramatic turns to keep its core dynamics interesting.

It's admirable that the supporting characters are being given weightier plotlines, but the show isn't always successful at exploring subjects like corporatization or race in the most nuanced way.