I immediately felt a connection to NBC’s Perfect Harmony last night. I’m not sure if it Get Out’s and Handmaid’s Tale Bradley Whitford falling asleep in his shitty Saab.
I, too, have a shitty Saab.
Or if it was one of the funniest lines I had heard in a long time that got me – Bradley Whitford’s character, former Princeton Music Professor Arthur Cochran, desperately tries to coax the baritone out of Geno Segers’ gentle giant of a character Dwayne by saying, “You sound like Darth Vader ate Mufasa.”
Or if it was I just like seeing Pitch Perfect’s Anna Camp in anything.
Whatever it was, NBC’s new musical comedy series Perfect Harmony sings a mighty beat and it got me.
Part Office. Part Sister Act, the series will fit snugly between Superstore and The Good Place.
The series follows a down-on-his-luck Cochran who feels abandoned in a small town in Kentucky where his recently deceased wife is from. After a night of binge drinking in his Saab, Arthur stumbles into an awful church choir rehearsal led by Camp who plays single mom Ginny, a waitress and who dreams of beating the mega-church down the street.
Arthur is initially skeptical of helping out the weirdest ensemble of characters to appear on the 80″ screens since Michael Scott led Dwight and the rest of The Office.
Speaking at the annual PaleyFest last night, Whitford, who compared it to the 1986 sports film Hoosiers, said, “He’s (Arthur’s) in a lot of trouble. He’s lost the love of his life and he’s ruined his career and he’s got nowhere else to go.”
Asked if comparisons with musical comedy Glee were fair, he said, “It’s not a comparison because the music was more the point in Glee, here the comedy is the entree. The music is really a fun part of it, but we’re not gearing up for a competition every show.”
Perfect Harmony has a lot of heart, humor and unforgettable lines. The cast led by Whitford, Camp, Rizwan Manji, Geno Segers, Tymberlee Hill should really mesh together well as the season progresses. It is one of Reel 360’s picks for Fall TV.
Perfect Harmony debuts Thursday September 26, 8:30/7:30c on NBC.
Contact Colin Costello at colin@reelchicago.com.
