by Megan Bailey, Staff Writer

In July of 2021, the world entered the musical town of Schmigadoon!. Or, well, Apple TV+ subscribers, who knew the show existed, entered it. Cinco Paul, showrunner and songwriter, conceived of a show where two people got trapped in a musical town, and thus, Schmigadoon! was born.

Undeniably a big swing, and a hard sell for any noted musical haters—though I don’t understand people like this—it’s a miracle Schmigadoon! lasted for even two seasons. The fun part is that Paul planned for the show to go multiple seasons and explore different decades of musical theater. So, while season one is mostly a send-up of musicals from the 1940s and ‘50s (like Brigadoon and The Music Man), the second season, known as Schmicago, took on the 1960s and ‘70s. Where season one looked like it came straight out of 1910s America, season two was much grittier. Depending on your taste in musical theater, you might like the bright, fun take in season one, or you might like season two’s darker storylines more. But if you enjoy musical theater at all, you’ll probably enjoy the way this show plays in the sandbox.

The show followed Josh (Keegan-Michael Key) and Melissa (Cecily Strong), a couple in a stale relationship, who are trapped in a musical town until they find true love (according to the leprechaun they meet on the outskirts of town, played by Martin Short). They meet some of the townsfolk, including Danny Bailey (Aaron Tveit), who makes a play for Melissa; Allonyius Menlove (Alan Cumming), the mayor; Mildred Layton (Kristin Chenowith), the preacher’s wife and busybody of town; and Betsy McDonough (Dove Cameron), a farmer’s young daughter who ends up engaged to Josh.

While Melissa likes musicals and understands the conventions of the story, Josh is less than enthused about the situation. But by the end of the first season, he sings a song to her and they find their respective true loves in each other. And their presence in Schmigadoon brings positive change to the townsfolk as well.

This series has a lot of top-billed Broadway performers: Kristin Chenowith, Alan Cumming, Ann Harada, and Aaron Tveit, as well as a lot of up-and-comers too, like Dove Cameron and Ariana Debose. This cast was rotated from the first season to the next, with them taking on different roles in the second season.

In the second season, the show opens with Melissa and Josh frustrated with real life, and they want to go back to Schmigadoon, but the problem is that they can’t find it. Dressed in old-timey clothes, they end up finding Schmicago, styled straight out Chicago and Cabaret, and they look decidedly out of place. In Schmicago, things aren’t quite what they seem. Octavius Kratt, a club owner (The Kratt Club, for those keeping track of Cabaret references), serves as an antagonist this season. His club is where Jenny Banks (Dove Cameron) works along with Elsie, another performer who is killed in the season premiere (mark another Cabaret reference there).

Josh is falsely accused, and Melissa spends a good chunk of the season trying to figure out who actually killed Elsie. Bobby (Jane Krakowski) serves as Josh’s lawyer, with a show-stopping number called “Bells and Whistles.” And then there’s the Sweeney Todd/Annie mashup storyline featuring Kristin Chenowith and Alan Cumming, a delightful turn. Schmicago! is a very ambitious season, and it showed how big Cinco Paul could go without losing sight of the fun musicality that’s been present throughout the show.

Unfortunately, it’s time for the familiar refrain (ha) in this project: The streaming model absolutely killed this show. Between the sheer number of new shows coming out now, and Apple TV+’s seeming refusal to promote its own catalog, Schmigadoon! was pretty much doomed from the start. It was presumably an expensive show, and in order for Apple TV+ to deem it worthy of renewal, it would’ve needed to become an overnight success, which is very hard in our current landscape. You can guess what happened here.

Even though Cinco Paul had twenty-five songs already written for the third season, Apple TV+ decided not to move forward with it. Thankfully, this story has a bit of a silver lining, in that the end of the second season left the story in a good place that serves as a series finale and a Schmigadoon! stage show will premiere at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., next year. It seems like 2025 will be a good year for TV shows turned musicals, as Smash is planning a Broadway production with cast to be announced.

This series has a happier current ending than most in this project so far, and I’m hoping that it will get to live on through the stage musical for some time. Next month, I’ll be writing about Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, which did not get a fair shake at all.