A highly popular IFC channel project that debuted on the 21st of January 2011 has passed through 6 successful season with 57 episodes in total. The creators and the producers of Portlandia went through a great amount of work to film one of the most exciting and hilarious projects on American television. Jonathan Krisel, the director of Portlandia picked out the title being inspired by one of the most famous sculptures in Portland situated downtown on 5th avenue. The show has won lots of awards and received a massive approval from the critics.
Short Overview
It’s a comedy series created in Portland, Oregon, USA. The production started seven years ago and since that time it has never lost popularity with quite a small budget. The stars of the series are Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein. The series is also stuffed with well-known guest stars appearing in the episodes from time to time.
Storyline Elements and Characters
The sketches are usually played by the same actors. It’s one of the peculiarities of the project. The same couple of actors portray a couple of characters for every new sketch. One of the most frequent characters are:
- Fred and Carrie. It’s a couple living together in Portland. They don’t use make-up or any special costumes to portray the characters. They actually look like the actors themselves in real life. Their relationships were the result of director’s inspiration from Sesame Street. His favorite characters were Bert and Ernie.
- Peter and Nance. Another couple in town. They are kind and supportive. These middle-aged cute characters share common enthusiasm at new plans and ideas and realize them together.
- Dave and Kath. One more couple keen on spending time outdoors. Extremely enthusiastic about strange and risky ideas. Often get stuck in confusing situations annoying their friends, family and neighbors.
- Nina and Lance. This couple demonstrates a heap of stereotypes referring to female and male roles in the family. Lance is fond of car mechanics and electronic staff and Nina is a typical girly girl mad about shopping, TV shows, parties and female glossy magazines.
Stop reading and start watching it right now and you’ll see more curious and charming couples struggling through their complex relationships.
Reception
From the very beginning, the show was highly appreciated by the audience and the critics. The reviews were mostly positive. For example, Metacritic gave the series an impressive rating – 71/100 for the first season and 75/100 for the second one. This funny and charming comedy has been stable about that for 6 seasons long. Most Americans comics agree that it’s one of the greatest American comedies on TV at present.
Curious Fact
The Simpsons animated TV series used Armisen and Brownstein’s characters to portray a couple of hipsters trying to change Springfield for Portland. The episode was called The Day the Earth Stood Cool.
What About the Release Date of the 7th Season?
On the 10th of February 2015 Portlandia was officially prolonged for two more seasons to go. Unfortunately we don’t have the exact release date of the upcoming broadcast but we’ll have to be patient and stay tuned to the news.
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