Portlandia Information

Portlandia is a Peabody Award"winning satirical sketch comedy television series, set and filmed in (and near) Portland, Oregon; it stars Saturday Night Live cast member Fred Armisen and lead guitarist/singer for Wild Flag, Carrie Brownstein. The show is produced by Andrew Singer and Jonathan Krisel for Broadway Video Television and IFC Original Productions. It debuted on the Independent Film Channel (IFC) on January 21, 2011.

The show shares its title with the sculpture of the same name above the entrance of the Portland Building on Fifth Avenue in downtown Portland, a statue appearing in the show's title sequence.

Episodes

See List of Portlandia episodes for more information 27 episodes of Portlandia have been produced and aired for the show's first three seasons, as well as one special hour-long episode.

Production

Conception and development

Brownstein and Armisen first met in the early 2000s and began collaborating on a series of comedy sketches for the Internet in 2005, under the name ThunderAnt. The sketches became increasingly Portland-centric, with premises ranging from irate diners at a popular Hawthorne District restaurant registering ridiculous complaints on the review website Yelp!, to a character's disastrous one-man performance at the city's Hollywood Theatre.

In July 2009, the duo pitched their idea for a full-fledged sketch comedy show to IFC and Lorne Michaels' Broadway Video production company, and the project was quickly approved.

Filming and production

The series is set and filmed in Portland, Oregon. Production for the first season, consisting of six episodes, began in August 2010 and was completed in September 2010. The budget for the first season was set at less than $1 million (US). Along with Allison Silverman, a former head writer and executive producer for The Colbert Report and Portlandia director Jonathan Krisel, Armisen and Brownstein wrote the sketches that appear in the first six episodes. Lorne Michaels served as executive producer.

The series stars Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein in various roles. Guest stars include Selma Blair, Chloe Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Aimee Mann, Sarah McLachlan, Heather Graham, Aubrey Plaza, Jason Sudeikis, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., Gus Van Sant, Tim Robbins, and Kyle MacLachlan as the mayor of Portland. Portland mayor Sam Adams is also featured as an assistant to MacLachlan's fictional mayor. Another episode including a music festival similar to Portland's MusicfestNW featured a rock band played by Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, James Mercer of The Shins, Brownstein's former Sleater-Kinney bandmate and ex-girlfriend Corin Tucker, Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse, and Decemberist Jenny Conlee.

On February 14, 2011, a second season of ten episodes was ordered; it began airing in January 2012. On March 13, 2012, in an interview with Australian radio station Triple J, Carrie Brownstein confirmed that Portlandia has been picked up for a third season. She said that filming had not yet started, but production would begin after she returned from her current Australian tour with her band Wild Flag. On March 21, 2012, it was officially announced by IFC that the series had indeed been renewed for a third season.

Reception

Portlandia debuted on IFC on January 21, 2011. IFC "cheered" the first episode's Nielsen ratings of 263,000 viewers (live plus same day); factoring in repeats and three days' worth of DVR viewings, the number grew to 725,000, a figure that does not include an estimated 500,000 online preview viewings on IFC.com, Hulu and YouTube during the days before the official IFC premiere. As of May 1, 2012 the series was available to watch on Netflix in Ireland and the UK.

The show has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. Review aggregator site Metacritic has given the first season a rating of 71 out of 100, and the second season a rating of 75 out of 100. Both of these ratings fall within in the site's range of "generally favorable reviews". Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times called the show "funny and charming." Verne Gay of Newsday awarded the series an "A" grade and called it "hilarious". He noted that "Brownstein and Armisen move so effortlessly between characters, then execute their riffs, tics, styles and voices with such skilled abandon that before long this doesn't seem like satire any longer but a fun house mirror reflection of intensely real people." Contrarily, Brian Lowry, writing for Variety, noted that the show was "clearly on a shoestring budget," and said that it featured an "array of tiresome characters" that provided "further proof not everyone deserves a sketch comedy showcase "? especially when the premise cuts no deeper than vignettes inspired by the wheat-germy, hippie-ish environs of Portland, Ore."

In 2012, Broadway Video and IFC were recognized as winners for the 71st Annual Peabody Awards; Portlandia was praised for its "funhouse mirror reflection of Portland" and "satire [that] is fresh, organic and cage-free." Portlandia won an Emmy Award in 2011 for Outstanding Costumes for a Variety Program or Special, and was also nominated for Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series and Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series in the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards. Portland mayor Sam Adams, who also appeared on the show, proclaimed January 21, 2011 Portlandia Day. The proclamation included a decorative bird, referring to a joke in the TV series. A bicycle tour company began offering Portlandia tours.

Home video release

Portlandia: Season One was released on Region 1 DVD and Blu-ray on December 6, 2011 and Region 4 on August 1, 2012. The one disc set consists of all six episodes of its first season. Special features include; Extended Scenes, Bloopers, An IFC Behind-the-Scenes Featurette, "Thunder Ant" Sketches and Audio Commentary by Armisen and Brownstein.

Portlandia: Season Two was released on Region 1 DVD and Blu-ray on September 25, 2012. The two disc set consists of all ten episodes of season two. Special features include; "Portlandia: the Tour: Seattle" Featurette, "Inside Portlandia" Featurette, "Feminist Bookstore" Deleted Scene, "Brunch Village: the Director's Cut", Excerpt from the Portlandia book and Audio Commentary by Armisen, Brownstein and Krisel.

There is also a combination set of both seasons available. Portlandia was also distributed in some countries on the iTunes store, Netflix and Amazon Instant Video

See also