Over the past 20 years, NBC has put together a pretty impressive track record of long running sitcoms. These are largely in part due to the creativity and prolific actions of Michael Schur. Schur helped create and develop such hits as Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Office, and The Good Place. Others include Community, Scrubs, 30 Rock, and Chuck. In 2015, Justin Spitzer added to that list with the quirky comedy, Superstore.
Set in a huge retail store, the show very transparently mocks big box stores like Walmart. Spitzer and the writers room take that setting and inject characters who represent the most extreme versions of themselves to create the environment. Each episode centers around a store event, usually a sale, a training, a visit from corporate or a holiday.
Superstore primarily follows Amy Sosa (America Ferrera), who has been working at Cloud 9 for several years. She’s the mother of a daughter she absolutely worships but is pulling more than her weight with her husband, who is clueless and irresponsible. In the premiere episode, she is introduced to the newly hired Jonah (Ben Feldman), who is sarcastic and a bit arrogant. She quickly puts him in his place, setting up the dynamic they would share over the first 100 episodes.*
With Jonah and Amy as the relatable, normal-ish protagonists, Superstore surrounds them with over-the-top co-workers. Glenn (Kids in the Hall’s Mark McKinney) is the store’s nuerotic manager who believes every conversation is about his shortcomings. Dina (Lauren Ash) is the hard-nosed assistant manager who polices the time clock and doubles as loss prevention and policy enforcement.
Starting the same day as Jonah is Mateo (Nico Santos.) He is a flamboyantly gay Filipino who is almost always trying to use others for his own benefit or promotion. Cheyenne (Nichole Sakura) is an airhead teenage mom who consistently makes poor decisions. Probably the standout of the show is Garrett (Key & Peele’s Colton Dunn). Garrett runs the customer service desk and makes the announcements over the store’s intercom. Dunn plays him as cool and sarcastic, but the writers never let him off the hook when it comes time to expose his flaws.
Superstore isn’t designed to break new ground. It isn’t typically filled with some morale to the story about being a better person or changing the world. For the most part, it’s set somewhere almost all of America will recognize and then painted with broad swaths of ridiculous scenarios, thanks in no small part to the caricatures who populate the cast. It has a tone that is far more Scrubs than The Good Place. It’s 95% laughs and 5% life lessons, and that small percentage is usually unintentional.
In 2020, the highs may seem not that high and the lows may seem bottomless. It’s good to have a light comedy like Superstore to simply pull up via Hulu and enjoy a few laughs.
(*Ferrara departed the show early in Season 6, but has stated that she is open to return before the series ends.)