Will Arnett's 'Murderville': Sharon Stone pokes fun at last divorce in Netflix improv comedy
Sharon Stone, Annie Murphy and other celebrities team up with Will Arnett for the new improv Netflix comedy show Murderville (released Feb. 3), a completely hysterical and refreshing take on procedural dramas like Law & Order and NCIS.
In Murderville, based on the U.K. series Murder in Successville, Homicide Division Senior Detective Terry Seattle (Arnett) pairs up with a celebrity guest star, a detective in training, to solve a murder.
After the death of his partner Lori (seen as a photo of Jennifer Aniston) in an unsolved murder that happened 15 years ago, Terry can’t seem to find a good fit to solve crimes with him.
Each of the six episodes features a guest star and a new murder victim. The guest celebrity has to improvise with Arnett, Lilan Bowden as the medical examiner and three possible suspects. At the end of each 30-minute episode, the guest star has to reveal who they believe the murderer is.
In addition to Stone and Murphy, Conan O’Brien, Ken Jeong, Kumail Nanjiani and Marshawn Lynch show off their improvisation skills.
Murderville also includes an impressive list of comedy icons in the roles of the various suspects in each episode, including Rob Huebel who was on the sketch comedy show Human Giant, with Aziz Ansari and Paul Scheer, and Nicole Sullivan from MADtv.
In Episode 5 with Casino star Stone, Terry tells her that “under no circumstances can you and I fall in love with each other,” before they team up to solve the murder of a surgeon who works at a local hospital.
“This is stickier than my last divorce,” Stone says when she’s trying to get an evidence bag open.
When Stone and Terry are questioning a suspect at the hospital, Dr. Jocelyn Alexander D.H.A, Terry asks Stone what her title would say. She responds with “B.A.E” as in “bad ass extraordinaire,” going on to poke some fun at herself saying that people usually describe her as “difficult.”
In Episode 4, Schitt’s Creek alum Murphy helps Terry try to solve the murder of the chief health inspector, who was found with his face in his lunchtime soup.
This leads to Terry having Murphy go in disguise, with a moustache, a wig and a leather jacket, to talk to the “crime boss of the foot truck mafia,” posing as the “pancake king” who is looking to sell his pancakes from a food truck.
It is basically impossible to not laugh while watching this show, with quirky and sometimes absurd setups. Watching the six guest stars and Arnett improvise the scenes that we see time and time again in the many procedural dramas that have flooded our TVs for years is incredibly fun to watch.
Much like an episode of Saturday Night Live, you end up laughing even harder when you see the show’s stars break character and let out a real giggle of their own.
Our advice, just like Arnett, truly commit to the hilarity of the series, enjoy the improv and have a great laugh.
