Netflix’s first interactive sitcom: Good for laughs, deserves a better app

Enlarge / In Netflix's latest interactive special, you can tell Ellie Kemper to wield a rocket launcher. Seriously. It's one of many reasons that comedy fans should endure the special's quirks and annoyances. (credit: Netflix)

Sixteen months after Black Mirror: Bandersnatch toyed with Netflix viewers, the streaming service is back with its second interactive TV special. This year, instead of a dark spin on '80s video games, we get a "breakable" version of the oddball comedy Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

If you come to this new interactive special hoping for one of the series' best episodes, you're out of luck. But if you're less interested in wacky New York comedy exploits and more interested in how interactive television is evolving, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend might merit must-watch status—with the caveat that Netflix's app could use an update before it streams another "choose-your-own-comedy" special.

Some people are still Schmidt out of luck

For the Schmidt-less among you: the series spent four seasons following Kimmy (Ellie Kemper), a cult escapee, as she re-acclimated to the modern world with a group of odd, new friends. While the series has officially concluded, this comeback special fast forwards to an entirely new, out-of-nowhere plot point and is therefore easy to watch for novices. She's about to wed a British prince (Daniel Radcliffe) who had previously never appeared in the series, but the wedding planning is interrupted by a discovery that her cult captor (Jon Hamm) may have imprisoned other people.

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