I was originally going to review the Peter Gabriel concert I went to last week, but I wanted to give that a lot of attention and this week I’m finding myself in a position where I’m not feeling so great, and since I already skipped out on writing yesterday, I picked something I could write about that was a little easier to work with, NBC sitcom Superstore!
Isn’t this show over already Brent? Well yeah… but I’ve been rewatching it (currently available to stream on both Hulu and Peacock) and it’s just been so much fun, and I hadn’t personally heard much buzz around it, so I figured it was worth a revisit.
Superstore is a 2015 comedy that ran for six seasons, centered on the lives of retail employees at a Walmart-esque store in Saint Louis, Missouri called Cloud 9. As a Saint Louis native, it’s a treat to hear local references sprinkled into the banter between the characters of this ensemble cast, but that’s just a small part of much larger appeal.
While the show focuses most frequently on Amy (America Ferrera) and Jonah’s (Ben Feldman) interactions, the standout acting from Store Management duo Glenn (Mark McKinney) and Dinah (Lauren Ash) and other store staffers played by Colton Dunn, Nico Santos, Nichole Sakura, Kaliko Kauahi, (and so many more) really define what makes this series great. If that weren’t enough, the customer “vignettes” peppered throughout highlighting the things customers do in retail stores when they think no one is watching are hilarious, accurate, and provide a perfect balance to the storytelling.
There are few lulls throughout the character’s misadventures and as I’ve watched through these, there is rarely an episode where I don’t burst out in laughter. Storylines often arc across several episodes and there are plenty of callbacks, so newcomers should consider watching from the beginning, but if you find yourself starting an episode at random you’ll still find a good appreciation for what’s happening throughout the shows six season span, which ends around the same time big box retail began seeing many of its own troubles, during the tumultuous reign of Covid.
I’m not going to bother working out a clichéd, “catchy” ratings system for these reviews, I’d rather plainly tell you what I think, and in this case I think it’s obvious that I love this show. It’s not without an occasional mis-steps, the least believable of which is that the male lead, Jonah, is sometimes intentionally unlikable, a choice that makes some of the other character’s attractions to him read a little flat and feeling more superficial than they otherwise would be. It does drive the story occasionally, but a lot of the time I find myself asking why Amy, Dina, Kelly, and even Glenn are so supportive of him, especially when it’s so often to their detriment. That has nothing to do with Feldman’s acting ability, I blame it on poorly planned writing, and it’s not enough of an issue that it ruins the rest of the fun.
Ultimately I think if you haven’t seen Superstore, you should give it a shot. You don’t need to have worked retail to find yourself identifying with this fantastic cast. If you have seen it, it makes for what my partner and I call good “background viewing”, which means you can work while it’s on and it doesn’t rely on so many visual gags that it would be unwatchable.
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