Portlandia (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Portlandia is a television series that debuted on the Independent Film Channel
(IFC) on January 21, 2011. The show, produced by Andrew Singer and Jonathan Krisel, is set and filmed both in and near Portland
, Oregon
and features Saturday Night Live
cast member Fred Armisen
as well as Carrie Brownstein
, a member of the now-defunct band Sleater-Kinney
and current lead guitarist/singer for Wild Flag
.
The name Portlandia refers to the sculpture of the same name
above the entrance of the Portland Building on Fifth Avenue in downtown Portland
.
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 greenlit.
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
, Steve Buscemi
, Aimee Mann
, Sarah McLachlan
, Heather Graham
, Aubrey Plaza, Jason Sudeikis
, Gus Van Sant
, and Kyle MacLachlan
, as the mayor
of Portland. Two episodes also feature real Portland mayor Sam Adams 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
, and Brownstein's former Sleater-Kinney bandmate Corin Tucker
, as well as an indie guitarist played by Decemberist Jenny Conlee
.
On February 14, 2011, a second season of ten episodes was ordered and will begin airing in January of 2012.
tallying a "generally favorable review" of 71 out of 100. Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times
called the show "funny and charming". Contrarily, Brian Lowry, writing for Variety
, noted the show was "clearly on a shoestring budget", and said 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." 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 doesn't include an estimated 500,000 online preview viewings on IFC.com, Hulu
and YouTube
during the days before the official IFC premiere.
Portland mayor Sam Adams
, who also appeared on the show, proclaimed January 21, 2011 Portlandia Day. The proclamation included a decorative bird, referencing a joke in the TV series. A bicycle tour company began offering Portlandia tours.
Independent Film Channel
The Independent Film Channel is an American cable TV network that airs independent film and related programming. IFC programming includes commercially interrupted feature-length films, original documentaries, shorts, animated series, original series, acquired series, and content exclusively for...
(IFC) on January 21, 2011. The show, produced by Andrew Singer and Jonathan Krisel, is set and filmed both in and near Portland
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
and features Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
cast member Fred Armisen
Fred Armisen
Fred Armisen is an American actor, comedian and musician best known for his work as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, and portraying off-color foreigners in various comedy films such as EuroTrip, Anchorman and Cop Out...
as well as Carrie Brownstein
Carrie Brownstein
Carrie Rachel Brownstein , is an American musician, writer, and actress, best known as a guitarist and vocalist in the now-defunct Portland, Oregon-based band Sleater-Kinney...
, a member of the now-defunct band Sleater-Kinney
Sleater-Kinney
Sleater-Kinney was an alternative rock band from Portland, Oregon that formed in 1994. Originally formed in Olympia, Washington, the group's name is derived from Sleater-Kinney Road, Interstate 5 off ramp #108 in Lacey, Washington, the location of one of their early practice spaces. They were a...
and current lead guitarist/singer for Wild Flag
Wild Flag
Wild Flag is an American four-piece group based in Portland, Oregon and Washington, D.C.. The group consists of Carrie Brownstein , Mary Timony , Rebecca Cole and Janet Weiss...
.
The name Portlandia refers to the sculpture of the same name
Portlandia
Portlandia is a sculpture by Raymond Kaskey located above the entrance of Michael Graves' Portland Building in downtown Portland, Oregon, at 1120 SW 5th Avenue...
above the entrance of the Portland Building on Fifth Avenue in downtown Portland
Downtown Portland
Downtown Portland, the city center of Portland, Oregon, United States, is located on the west bank of the Willamette River. It is in the northeastern corner of the southwest section of the city and is where most of the city's high-rise buildings are found....
.
Conception and development
Brownstein and Armisen first met in the early 2000s and began collaborating on a comedy series of sketches for the InternetInternet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
in 2005, under the name Thunderant. The sketches became increasingly Portland-centric, with premises ranging from irate diners at a popular Hawthorne District
Hawthorne, Portland, Oregon
The Hawthorne District in Portland, Oregon is an area of Southeast Portland on SE Hawthorne Blvd., particularly between 30th and 42nd Avenues. The area has numerous retail stores, including clothing shops, restaurants, bars, brewpubs and microbreweries. Hawthorne district is known for its young,...
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
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
show to IFC and Lorne Michaels
Lorne Michaels
Lorne Michaels, CM is a Canadian-American television producer, writer, and comedian best known for creating and producing Saturday Night Live and producing the various film and TV projects that spun off from it.-Early life:...
' Broadway Video
Broadway Video
Broadway Video is a media production and distribution company located within the Brill Building on Broadway, New York, United States. Founded in 1979 as a production house tasked with post-production work on Saturday Night Live, Broadway Video has since become one of the largest independent...
production company, and the project was quickly greenlit.
Filming and production
Allison Silverman
Allison Silverman is an American comedy writer from Gainesville, Florida. She was the head writer and executive producer for The Colbert Report until 2009.-Life and awards:...
, 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
Fred Armisen
Fred Armisen is an American actor, comedian and musician best known for his work as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, and portraying off-color foreigners in various comedy films such as EuroTrip, Anchorman and Cop Out...
and Carrie Brownstein
Carrie Brownstein
Carrie Rachel Brownstein , is an American musician, writer, and actress, best known as a guitarist and vocalist in the now-defunct Portland, Oregon-based band Sleater-Kinney...
in various roles. Guest stars include Selma Blair
Selma Blair
Selma Blair is an American actress who has worked in film, theatre and television. She has performed in feature films including Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde, The Sweetest Thing, Hellboy, The Fog, Purple Violets and Hellboy II: The Golden Army...
, Steve Buscemi
Steve Buscemi
Steven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi is an American actor, writer and film director. An associate member of the renowned experimental theater company The Wooster Group, Buscemi has starred and supported in successful Hollywood and indie films including New York Stories, Mystery Train, Reservoir Dogs,...
, Aimee Mann
Aimee Mann
Aimee Mann is an American rock singer-songwriter, guitarist and bassist.-Early life:Aimee Mann grew up in Bon Air, Virginia, graduated from Open High School in 1978 and attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but dropped out to sing with her first punk rock band, the Young Snakes...
, Sarah McLachlan
Sarah McLachlan
Sarah Ann McLachlan, OC, OBC is a Canadian musician, singer and songwriter. Known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-soprano vocal range, as of 2006, she has sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards and four...
, Heather Graham
Heather Graham
Heather Joan Graham is an American actress. She has appeared in such films as Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Lost in Space, Bowfinger, From Hell, Anger Management, and The Hangover...
, Aubrey Plaza, Jason Sudeikis
Jason Sudeikis
Daniel Jason Sudeikis is an American actor and comedian currently starring as a cast member on Saturday Night Live.-Early life:Sudeikis was born Daniel Jason Sudeikis in Fairfax, Virginia, the son of Kathryn , a travel agent who was president of the American Society of Travel Agents, and Dan...
, Gus Van Sant
Gus Van Sant
Gus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1997 film Good Will Hunting and his 2008 film Milk, both of which were also nominated for Best Picture, and won the...
, and Kyle MacLachlan
Kyle MacLachlan
Kyle Merritt MacLachlan is an American actor. MacLachlan is best known for his roles in cult films Blue Velvet as Jeffrey Beaumont, Showgirls as Zack Carey, as Paul Atreides in Dune, and Ray Manzarek in the Oliver Stone film The Doors...
, as the mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
of Portland. Two episodes also feature real Portland mayor Sam Adams as an assistant to MacLachlan's fictional mayor. Another episode including a music festival similar to Portland's MusicfestNW
MusicfestNW
MusicfestNW is a multi-venue music festival that takes place every fall in Portland, Oregon.- History :MusicfestNW was founded by Mark Zusman and Richard Meeker in 1995 as a joint venture between Willamette Week, Meeker and Zusman's Portland Pulitzer Prize-winning alternative weekly, and South by...
featured a rock band played by Colin Meloy
Colin Meloy
Colin Patrick Henry Meloy is the lead singer and songwriter for the Portland, Oregon, folk-rock band The Decemberists. In addition to vocals, he performs with an acoustic guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bouzouki, harmonica, percussion and interpretive hand gestures.-Early life...
of The Decemberists
The Decemberists
The Decemberists are an indie folk rock band from Portland, Oregon, United States, fronted by singer/songwriter Colin Meloy. The other members of the band are Chris Funk , Jenny Conlee , Nate Query , and John Moen .The band's...
, James Mercer
James Mercer (musician)
James Russell Mercer is an American guitarist and Alternative rock musician. He is a founding member and lead singer-songwriter of the Grammy-nominated indie rock group The Shins. In 2009, Mercer and producer Danger Mouse formed the side project Broken Bells, for which they released a...
of The Shins
The Shins
The Shins are an American indie rock band comprising singer, songwriter, and guitarist James Mercer, guitarist/bassist Dave Hernandez, Eric Johnson of Fruit Bats, drummer Joe Plummer and bassist Ron Lewis. Their sound draws on several musical genres, including pop, alternative rock, indie rock,...
, and Brownstein's former Sleater-Kinney bandmate Corin Tucker
Corin Tucker
Corin Lisa Tucker is a singer and guitarist, best known for her work with rock band Sleater-Kinney.- Early life :In the early 1990s, Tucker attended Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, where she studied film, political economy, and social change...
, as well as an indie guitarist played by Decemberist Jenny Conlee
Jenny Conlee
Jenny Conlee is the accordionist, pianist, organist, keyboardist, melodica player, and occasional backup singer and harmonicist for the indie rock quintet The Decemberists, roles she has filled on each of the band's releases.-Portland music:...
.
On February 14, 2011, a second season of ten episodes was ordered and will begin airing in January of 2012.
Reception
The show has received mostly positive reviews, with MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
tallying a "generally favorable review" of 71 out of 100. Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
called the show "funny and charming". Contrarily, Brian Lowry, writing for Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
, noted the show was "clearly on a shoestring budget", and said 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." IFC "cheered" the first episode's Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
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 doesn't include an estimated 500,000 online preview viewings on IFC.com, Hulu
Hulu
Hulu is a website and over-the-top subscription service offering ad-supported on-demand streaming video of TV shows, movies, webisodes and other new media, trailers, clips, and behind-the-scenes footage from NBC, Fox, ABC, and Obstacle on October 20th 2011 Nickelodeon and CBS and many other...
and YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
during the days before the official IFC premiere.
Portland mayor Sam Adams
Sam Adams (politician)
Sam Adams is an American politician and the current mayor of Portland, Oregon. He grew up in Newport, Oregon, attended the University of Oregon and worked on a number of campaigns before taking office as a Portland commissioner. Among them was Vera Katz's run for mayor of Portland...
, who also appeared on the show, proclaimed January 21, 2011 Portlandia Day. The proclamation included a decorative bird, referencing a joke in the TV series. A bicycle tour company began offering Portlandia tours.