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 Rating is available when the video has been rented. ||||| Here's a sentence that probably hasn't been uttered, ever: I expect more from you, Tina Fey. 
 
 "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt," Fey's new comedy with "30 Rock" writing partner Robert Carlock, has all her trademarks: An absurdist point of view, joke so rapid-fire they warrant a speed limit, pointed media satire, and a New York specificity ("This isn't the Chinatown bus. You can't just choke someone who's sleeping!") that still plays to the sticks. 
 
 The show was developed for NBC, Fey's longtime home, and after promoting it for its midseason schedule, the network very politely shunted it to Netflix. Reading between the corporate-speak, it seemed NBC was too ill-equipped to promote a comedy actually designed to be funny. That "Kimmy Schmidt" was embraced so eagerly by Netflix, with its zeitgeist-y hits "Orange Is the New Black" and "House of Cards," should have been the ultimate vote of confidence. 
 
 But "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" is a little less than the sum of its parts. Written with sunny, silly Ellie Kemper (Erin from "The Office") in mind, the series opens in an underground bunker where doomsday cultist Rev. Richard Wayne Gary Wayne has been keeping four women locked up for 15 years. Kimmy is one of the "Indiana mole women," as they are dubbed after their rescue. After their cursory "Today" show appearance ("Thank you, victims!"), she decides to press her luck in the Big Apple. 
 
 She finds a roommate in Titus Andromedon ("30 Rock" alum Tituss Burgess), a failed actor so flamboyant he couldn't get cast as a straight giraffe in "The Lion King," and a boss in Jenna Maroney, er, Jacqueline Voorhes (Parsippany native Jane Krakowski), a wealthy, out-of-touch Upper East Side trophy wife who hires Kimmy to watch her sociopath-in-the-making young son and troublesome teenage stepdaughter. 
 
 Kemper is delightfully daffy in this modern Mary Tyler Moore role, oozing wonder as she discovers the marvels of the new millennium -- matching tattoos? "It's real popular, like taking pictures of your food and being biracial" -- and tries to catch up with all that she's missed since middle school. Slang. Windows. "Dancing is all about the butts now!" 
 
 I could quote "Kimmy Schmidt" all day. (Okay, one more: "I'm pretty and tough, like a diamond. Or beef jerky in a ball gown.") So why am I not nuts about it? It's funnier than most of what's on television these days, but it never coalesces into something spectacular. 
 
 There are hints of a much darker comedy rooted in Kimmy's underground saga -- when she tries to convince Jacqueline that she can get through anything if she can get through 10 seconds of it ... and then another 10 seconds, or when a plastic surgeon comments on Kimmy's untouched-by-the-sun skin and distinctive "scream lines." 
 
 But the show seems much more content to watch Kemper banana-peel her way through modern life and pick herself back up again. And again. And again. 
 
 Krakowski is wonderful as always, but Jacqueline's cluelessness about how the other 99 percent lives hits the exact same notes as "30 Rock"'s Jenna. Even a fine cameo by Martin Short as a renowned (and rubberized) plastic surgeon -- "Sidney built Mariah Carey from scratch!" -- feels like a rerun of "30 Rock" quack Dr. Leo Spaceman. 
 
 The set-up and humor was clearly too out of step with NBC's current sensibilities, and perhaps the first six episodes I viewed reflects an attempt to moderate the show's essential weirdness for broadcast television. The move to Netflix came as Fey and Carlock were editing the back half of the 13-episode order, and Netflix also ordered a second season. "30 Rock" took a little time to find its footing, and maybe we'll see a more fully-realized series emerge eventually. 
 
 After all, as Titus, himself a refugee from small town Mississippi, tells Kimmy, "Escaping is not the same as making it." 
 
 Grade: B+ 
 
 Vicki Hyman may be reached at vhyman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @vickihy. Find NJ.com/Entertainment on Facebook. ||||| What’s the name of the show? Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt 
 
 When does it premiere? All 13 episodes are available for streaming on Friday 6 March on Netflix. 
 
 What is this show? Kimmy Schmidt (Bridesmaids’ Ellie Kemper) is one of four women rescued from an underground bunker after being imprisoned for 15 years by a crazy polygamist cult leader. When she emerges she knows nothing of the world and has to figure out how to live in New York. Oh, and it’s a sitcom. 
 
 Seriously? It doesn’t sound funny. Well, then you know nothing about doomsday cult survivors. 
 
 What’s the show’s pedigree? Tina Fey and fellow 30 Rock veteran Robert Carlock created the show as a 13-episode series for NBC. They decided that they didn’t want it, so NBC sold it to Netflix, which loved it so much they already ordered a second season. 
 
 Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Ellie Kemper stars in Tina Fey's sunny sitcom Read more 
 
 How does a show transition from NBC to Netflix? It is a dodgy move and the show retains the 22-minute format that network sitcoms share, including being broken down into acts. Some work has been done to smooth over where the commercial breaks would have gone, but it follows a familiar rhythm. Also, there are no swear words or anything that dirty – which is refreshing. 
 
 What happens in the premiere? Kimmy and three of her fellow “wives” are rescued from a bunker in Indiana. They had been living there in isolation for the past 15 years after the madman who kidnapped them told them that the apocalypse had happened and they were the only humans left alive. 
 
 On a trip to New York to do an interview with Matt Lauer (of course), Kimmy decides that rather than go back to Indiana, that she wants to stay in New York where no one knows she is a “mole woman”. She finds an apartment being rented by Lillian (Carol Kane) who comes with a roommate, Titus (Tituss Burgess), who describes himself as the gay Tiki Barber. Now that she has a home she has to pay the rent and stumbles into the job as a nanny for the rich, vain, selfish and slightly sad Jacqueline (Jane Krakowski). Kimmy welcomes her new life with a smile that can only belong to someone who has yet to learn that both Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston are now dead. 
 
 Is this show any good? If Kimmy Schmidt knew what emoji are, she would describe it as sun, sun, crossout, rain cloud, smiley face, winky face, dancing woman, paint your nails. But Kimmy Schmidt does not know what emoji are (yet) so let’s just say that it is very good and rather funny. Most of the comedy comes from the fact that Kimmy doesn’t know anything about the modern world, and what she does know is incorrect, but she states it with kind the pluck and sincerity that makes you wish she was right. This is a girl who wears light-up sneakers and doesn’t say she was kidnapped but “tooken”. 
 
 That kind of attention to detail and fine characterisation will feel familiar to 30 Rock fans. It’s not just the presence of Krakowski, playing a more moneyed version of Jenna Maroney, that make this feel like an unofficial sequel to 30 Rock, but the patterns of Tina Fey’s comedy so evident in the writing. When Kimmy accidentally tries to strangle her roommate while sleepwalking she says his neck was covered in grease. “I fell asleep eating a Hot Pocket,” he retorts. If that’s not something that Liz Lemon already said, it certainly sounds like it. 
 
 What differentiates it from 30 Rock, however, is the darkness just below the surface. As unwaveringly happy as Kimmy is, she still tries to strangle her roommate because she’s having a dream about being locked in a bunker. She has an unexplained fear of Velcro and when a man tries to flirt with her and puts his hands over her eyes and says, “Guess who?” she flips out. Making Kimmy deeply damaged but still inspirational and funny is a difficult line to walk, but this show manages it with aplomb. 
 
 Which characters will you love? Pretty much everyone. Kimmy, of course, is a weird ray of warped sunshine that will warm your heart. Next to Julia Louis-Dreyfuss on Veep, Kemper as Kimmy is perhaps the best comedic performance on television. Her roommate Titus is a catchphrase slot machine, the hilarious jackpots rolling out with some regularity. And, finally, good on Fey and the other producers for finally bringing Carol Kane back to television. 
 
 Which characters will you hate? Xanthippe (Dylan Gelula) is the boss’s 15-year-old stepdaughter who is out to expose Kimmy’s secret. She sort of plays the villain but is drawn as such a wonderfully obnoxious tweeting teen that you can’t help being amused by her. 
 
 What’s the best thing about it? It’s all the little things. The chyrons on all the fake news segments about finding the “mole women” are hilarious, as are Kimmy’s malapropisms (she calls hashtags “hashbrowns”). This is the sort of show that could benefit from multiple viewings, because the jokes are so packed in you’re sure to miss something while laughing. 
 
 What’s the worst thing about it? The end of each episode after just 22 minutes. 
 
 Should you watch this show? I can think of nothing better than sitting through all 13 episodes in a row on a rainy afternoon when you need something to live for. That something is a cult survivor who lives in a closet in a basement apartment in Brooklyn. Just trust me. ||||| BINGEWORTHY 
 
 Lightning strikes twice for Tina Fey. This time it’s on Netflix, where her hilarious, admirably happy new comedy starring a brilliant Ellie Kemper debuts Friday. Prepare to binge. 
 
 Positive people are annoying. 
 
 That’s why so many of today’s beloved TV characters are the curmudgeonly, cynical, cranky types. The jaded are our brethren in self-loathing. We delight in laughing along with their pessimistic worldviews, or living vicariously through their unchecked moral bankruptcy. In fact, we want our characters so dark and brooding—and wry and crude—that we’ve even forced TV’s brightest minds to flee the shackles of broadcast television to streaming services like Netflix in order to explore the depths of their depravity more fully. 
 
 So it’s rather surprising that from Netflix, the network that’s given us Kevin Spacey’s devil in the Oval Office and Litchfield Prison’s ward of disturbed inmates, we’re given TV’s best new character. Her name is Kimmy Schmidt, and her defining characteristic is the brightest, most joyous ear-to-ear smile you’ve ever seen. 
 
 It’s not an eerie, deranged smile, either. It’s not the grin of a doofus. It’s genuine. It’s pleasing. And, on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Netflix’s new series available for streaming Friday, it’s not being mocked. Instead, it’s inviting us to smile back. Which you do. Quite often. 
 
 Given pop culture’s obsession with sarcasm and the idea that no bad deed should ever go punished, it’s quite the progressive creative decision to infiltrate all that moodiness with a TV show centered on happiness and positivity. Leave it to Tina Fey to cook up a TV binge that we can feel good about devouring. 
 
 Created by Fey and her 30 Rock co-genius Robert Carlock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt opens on a moment of sheer bliss in the midst of horrific circumstances. 
 
 There’s Ellie Kemper (The Office, Bridesmaids) as Kimmy, eyes wide and smile wider, as she puts the star on a Christmas tree. She turns to her friends to talk about Secret Santa presents. It’s only when the group of women begins singing together that we’re clued in to the darkness that surrounds them. 
 
 “Apocalypse, apocalypse, we caused it with our dumbness,” they sing, to the tune of “O Christmas Tree.” 
 
 A few quick cuts later, the girls are rescued from the bunker they’ve been living in for 15 years as members of Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne’s doomsday cult. They’re whisked away to New York, where they appear on the Today show and are interviewed by Matt Lauer about their experience as the “Indiana mole women.” 
 
 The next two minutes sets the tone of the entire series: a high-concept premise, Fey’s signature kooky-sharp writing, and an overtone of sadness and injustice that is ka-pow powered through by Kemper’s relentlessly sunny—though still impressively shaded—performance. (There’s a reason Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt sounds like a superhero.) 
 
 Lauer quizzes each of the mole women on how they fell prey to the cult in the first place. “The reverend had bought some of my hair on Craigslist, and we started emailing and I just thought he had some real good ideas,” says one. “I had waited on Reverend Richard at a York Steak House I worked at and one night he invited me out to his car to see some baby rabbits, and I didn’t want to be rude, so…here we are,” says another. 
 
 “I’m always amazed at what women will do because they are afraid of being rude,” Lauer deadpans. (Lauer deserves a Guest Actor Emmy nod for this scene, and that’s no exaggeration.) 
 
 The segment quickly ends, and the mole women are ushered out of the studio by a producer handing them gift bags and shouting, “Thank you, victims! Good luck!” And yet, in spite of all this crass treatment and negativity, Kimmy Schmidt decides to make a go of it. She’s going to stay in New York. 
 
 There, basically, is your plot. A woman who literally hasn’t seen the light of day in 15 years is going to live, work, and create a life for herself in the harshest, most unforgiving city in the country. She’s more excited than Jessie Spano on caffeine pills, and barely even scared. 
 
 Kemper imbues Kimmy with a sense of wonder that recalls Will Ferrell in Elf, Jennifer Garner in 13 Going on 30, and Tom Hanks in Big, but is a comedic tour de force in her own right. 
 
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 She cheerfully runs alongside joggers, because, in her mind, why wouldn’t one be stoked to be running outside? She laughs at an automatic sink faucet turning on with the mad gaiety of Julia Roberts receiving pearls in Pretty Woman. She has candy for dinner and is generally confused by modern society, but in a curious and cute rather than scared kind of way. 
 
 Obliviousness is a funny color on her, too. “Where is your grownup?” she asks a little boy after seeing him steal candy. “Are you alone? Or are you some kind of tiny businessman, sir?” 
 
 The boy leads her to his mom, an Upper East Side narcissist named Jaqueline Voorhes, played by Fey’s 30 Rock secret weapon, Jane Krakowski (she’s just as lethal here). Jacqueline promptly hires Kimmy to be her son’s nanny, and proceeds to steal every scene she’s in with delicious one-liners sending up the vapid and needlessly opulent New York rich. 
 
 It would be easy to draw comparisons between Krakowski’s self-involved Jacqueline on Kimmy Schmidt and Krakowski’s self-involved Jenna on 30 Rock, were it not for one obvious difference: Unlike Jenna, Jacqueline very clearly is not a terrible person. But then again, it would be easy to draw comparisons between much of Kimmy Schmidt and 30 Rock. 
 
 Tonally, the shows look and feel are very similar. They both explore our cultural tics and skewer our oft-unintended self-centeredness. They both fire off zeitgeisty wordplay as if the actors are rapid-fire comedy rifles. And Kimmy’s sense of humor echoes that of 30 Rock’s: toeing the mainstream line, but living in that precarious wobble off-center. It’s what gives both shows their edge. 
 
 But, more impressively, both put clever spins on the tired “single gal in the city” trope. 
 
 The conceit should be dried up at this point, having perhaps wrung the last bit of cleverness out of it with Fey’s hapless Liz Lemon as the one trying to have it all. But seeing the world through Kimmy’s blindly optimistic eyes is a welcome counterpoint to the worn-down jadedness of Liz, and it’s a testament to Kemper’s performance that Kimmy’s pluckiness doesn’t seem retrograde, or grating. 
 
 She’s not Pollyanna. She’s got a 'tude. She’s spunky and she’s defiant, which is why you have no doubt that she’s gonna make it after all. Her spirit fingers cheerleading her new lease on life have a high-functioning middle one, too, and it’s directed at anyone hell-bent on destroying her fresh opportunity. 
 
 Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was originally developed for NBC before the network eventually passed and it went to Netflix, reportedly because they found the whole thing to be too unusual for network TV. 
 
 As the episodes progress and Titus Burgess, who plays Kimmy’s new roommate, and Carol Kane (!!!), who plays her new landlord, blossom into the kind of endearing kooks we’re used to Fey peppering her shows with, it’s easy to see why Netflix is the perfect home for the series. Who knows what kind of stereotypes NBC would have flattened their characters into, or even Krakowski’s for that matter? 
 
 Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt doesn’t take advantage of the freedom of Netflix to ramp up nudity or profanity or moral depravity, as other series do. Instead it uses the creative breathing room to dial up and embrace the show’s inherent weirdness—this is a comedy about a cult survivor, after all—and then have the luxury to bring things back to a relatable, human level again. 
 
 As a sum of its parts, this series shouldn’t need a ringing endorsement to pique anyone’s interest in it. (Hello, this is a comedy from Tina Fey and starring the trio of Ellie Kemper, Jane Krakowski, and Carol Kane. They could be watching paint dry and we’d all be on board.) 
 
 Nonetheless, it can’t be oversold how big a win this is for Fey and Carlock, who prove themselves just as adept at characterizing a protagonist’s joie de vivre as they are at crafting a woman content with merely working on her night cheese. Going the route of happy when everyone else is veering dark, they’ve solidified themselves as not just bravura comedy writers—which we already knew they were—but industry risk-takers, too.
– Tina Fey's new show is now available for streaming on Netflix, and while Fey herself isn't in it, most critics think her fans will feel right at home with the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. It stars Office alum Ellie Kemper in the lead role as a sunny young woman released back into the world after 15 years in a bunker. Some opinions: Kevin Fallon, Daily Beast: "It can’t be oversold how big a win this is for Fey and (30 Rock cohort Robert) Carlock, who prove themselves just as adept at characterizing a protagonist’s joie de vivre as they are at crafting a woman content with merely working on her night cheese. Going the route of happy when everyone else is veering dark, they’ve solidified themselves as not just bravura comedy writers—which we already knew they were—but industry risk-takers, too." Willa Paskin, Slate: NBC passed on this? It "would instantly have been funnier than any show it currently has on the air." Give Fey and Carlock time to develop their themes and supporting cast. "But they still have complete mastery of their rhythm: cracks, asides, observations, and goofy references fly by so quickly, as a viewer you start to play a kind of reverse dodgeball—desperately doing whatever you can to get pegged by a punch line." Brian Moylan, Guardian: "I can think of nothing better than sitting through all 13 episodes in a row on a rainy afternoon when you need something to live for. That something is a cult survivor who lives in a closet in a basement apartment in Brooklyn. Just trust me." Vicki Hyman, NJ.com: She expected more from Fey. "So why am I not nuts about it? It's funnier than most of what's on television these days, but it never coalesces into something spectacular." Still, it's a solid B+.