Getting invested in a new streaming series is a bit of a gamble. If you’re in the minority of people who get invested, or if it disappoints the powers that be for other reasons, then in all likelihood it’ll get axed before there’s a happy resolution. By our count, the number of Netflix cancellations in the first six months of 2022 has already reached double figures.
So it’s worth celebrating when a new show performs well enough to get a second season, and the latest to pass this modest landmark is Apple TV Plus’ Schmigadoon!
Schmigadoon! — a six-episode parody of 1940s musicals starring Keegan-Michael Key and Cecily Strong — will return for a second season, Apple has confirmed (opens in new tab). But we won’t be getting more songs in the vein of Lovers’ Spat and Corn Puddin’ with the series instead relocating to the town of Schmicago for its take on musicals of the 1960s and 70s. Think Chicago, Grease, West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof.
As is only sensible for streaming series in the current trigger-happy cancellation climate, Schmigadoon!’s first season ended ambiguously with a resolution to Melissa and Josh’s relationship problems, but with the hint that the world has more to offer. The screen faded to black before the couple could cross the bridge back to New York City, where people seldom spontaneously break into song, no matter how happy.
“I think it was by design that we don’t cross the bridge,” Key told TVLine (opens in new tab) last year. “We get a palpable ending, which is to say [Melissa and Josh] have learned the lesson that Schmigadoon! has presented to them, but there is more to this place that we haven’t explored. I know for a fact that Cinco has worked out a Season 2 in his mind, if we’re lucky enough to get a pick-up.”
For the second season, Key and Strong will be joined by Tituss Burgess from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmitdt and The Gilded Age star Patrick Page.
Meanwhile, the likes of Ariana DeBose, Dove Cameron, Jaime Camil, Krisin Chenoweth, Alan Cumming, Ann Harada, Jane Krakowski, Martin Short and Aaron Tveit will all be returning, but it’s seemingly the end of the line for Fred Armisen and Liam Quiring-Nkindi who aren’t listed as appearing.
Schmigadoon! features prominently on our list of the best Apple TV Plus shows you watch today, so it’s great news that it has performed well enough to get a second season. No release date was listed, but we’d be surprised if it wasn’t pencilled in for a 2023 debut.
