Why you should watch the TV series "Miracle Workers"

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

At the very least, you will see Steve Buscemi in the role of God.

The American TV channel TBS launched the comedy series "Miracle Workers" by Simon Rich based on his book What in God’s Name.

Rich has already become famous thanks to the project "Man Seeks a Woman", where situations typical of a romantic sitcom were brought to the point of absurdity.

It seems that in the new story, the screenwriter was not going to reduce the degree of madness. And that is why the "Miracle Workers" turned out to be so bright and attractive.

So, imagine that God and the angels do not dwell on clouds under the eternal sun, but sit in a typical huge office. God is a boss who no longer does anything, but simply delegates: various departments answer prayers, explode volcanoes, make clouds, produce mud.

And then one day God realizes that the Earth and people are very bored with him. And he decides to blow up the planet along with all its inhabitants. But two employees of the prayer department offer him a bet: they are fulfilling some incredible request from people, and in exchange God will not blow up the Earth.

But it turns out that they chose the most difficult topic - love.

Meme man in the image of God

The Almighty in comedy projects was shown in different ways. Remember at least Morgan Freeman in "Bruce Almighty", Whoopi Goldberg from "The main thing is not to be afraid!" or the dearest Alanis Morissette from Dogma. But to take on the role of God Steve Buscemi is a very extraordinary decision.

In fact, the original role of the Creator was supposed to be played by Owen Wilson. But in the fall, he left the project, and he was urgently replaced by Buscemi. And the show only benefited.

In addition to his solid acting experience, he has already become the star of many jokes and memes. The trailer for "50 Shades of Gray" was remade to match his image, and in deepfakes they even superimposed the actor's face on Jennifer Lawrence's speech.

So Buscemi himself makes the character funny. Moreover, the appropriate image was chosen for him.

The God in Miracle Workers resembles either the Dude from The Big Lebowski, or one of the many images of Buscemi himself in the Coen films. He is unkempt, lazy and awkward. But most importantly, he is very bored. God is tired of earthly vanity, people thank him less and less, and they have forgotten about sacrifices altogether.

His behavior is somewhat similar to the character of his namesake Steve Carell from the American version of "The Office", perhaps more lazy. He watches TV, trying not to pay attention to bad news, comes up with crazy ideas and at the same time shirks his direct duties in every possible way.

Perhaps this can be understood. For him, what to destroy the earth, what to force someone to eat a worm - occupations of the same order. So the Almighty is having fun as best he can. And all the questions have to be solved by his subordinates.

Heavenly office

Unusual in this series is not only God, but also his subordinates. Heaven Inc. is a typical firm with typical employees. They do not wear white robes and wings, but go to work in ordinary clothes. And they mostly relate to their duties carelessly, which is why problems regularly occur on Earth.

There is, for example, the careerist Sanjay (Karan Sonya from "Deadpool"), who in every possible way curses with his boss, although he himself tries to throw off all tasks on others. Burnt out cynical secretary Rosie (Lolly Adefop), able to pull even God.

And, of course, “young, ambitious and purposeful” (as it is customary to write in the resume) employee of the dirt department Eliza (Geraldine Viswanathan). The whole plot will be built around her misadventures.

Dreaming of a promotion, she ends up in the Prayer Answers Department, where, as it turned out, only one employee works - the withdrawn and unsociable Craig (Daniel Radcliffe). Looking at his clothes, behavior, beard in the first episode, as well as the basement where the department is located, it is difficult to avoid associations with the image of a typical sysadmin.

Every day, several billion prayers fall on Craig, from finding the glove to saving the world. He manages to answer three - just like many sysadmins. But he loves his job and is happy to help people in small life troubles.

The meeting between Eliza and Craig is a typical conflict between a young energetic worker and an expert. She immediately wants to solve global issues, forgetting about the consequences, and he is happy with little, guided by the principle of "do no harm." Although it does not always work out.

It is Eliza's initiative that leads to God's decision to destroy the Earth. Of course, the girl did not plan this, it just happened.

And the indefatigable heroine decides to prove to the Almighty that everything is not so bad, and chooses the simplest "impossible" prayer: a guy and a girl are in love with each other, you just need to help them kiss.

It seems to be easy. But who knew that this couple would rather wait for the end of the world than confess their love to each other.

Introverted love

In fact, there are two stories of relationships here at once, and one follows the other literally word for word. On earth, Sam and Laura cannot say that they like each other. Meanwhile, in heaven, Craig is learning to communicate with Eliza.

And both of these lines, although filled with ridiculous situations and humor, still look touching. After all, it seems to everyone that it is easy to talk about feelings and do emotional actions.

But Sam is embarrassed to even write "hello" in SMS. And Laura falls for a random handsome man simply because he took the initiative into his own hands. And, of course, they themselves will spoil all romantic moments and fall into a stupor when they simply have to kiss.

And at this time in the sky, the angels create a suitable atmosphere, launch all the mechanisms so that the lovers meet at the right moment, see some important sign. Nobody thinks about fear and embarrassment.

And only Craig can understand how the heroes feel, because he himself is exactly the same. He was used to no one paying attention to him. And that is why, only with the support of Craig, lovers can find themselves together, unknowingly saving all of humanity.

Humor - black and not only

But the main charm of "Miracle Workers" is that different types of humor coexist here. First, the constant irony of office workers. Sanjay poses in front of television cameras, and immediately has to run to help the boss turn on the microwave. Rosie excelled at everything, and eventually became a secretary. Craig never leaves his dark corner for years.

And again, you can remember "The Office" with all the stereotypical characters. Only in "Miracle Workers" a lot of phantasmagoria was added, because there is a department of genitals and even a department of snowflake design. But in general, angels are not at all different from managers: they are lazy, confuse tasks and, like many employees of a typical company, dream that all work will fall apart.

Secondly, it is black humor. Here, first of all, Buscemi and the main characters light up. Moreover, the first creates game exclusively because of stupidity or resentment: he comes up with punishments for atheist jokers or communicates with the righteous, forcing him to doubt his own adequacy.

But for Craig and Eliza, the opposite is true - they always want "what's best." But then you have to arrange the seller an attack of appendicitis, then the visitor to the basketball game diarrhea. A separate pleasure is news broadcasts in which they talk about the consequences of these actions. And you are both funny and ashamed of the heroes.

Well, in addition, cute and romantic humor. True, the characters were not made overly charming. John Bass as Sam adds a comedic grotesque to the action. But that he, that Radcliffe is great at playing guys who always have nothing to say in the company of a nice girl.

"Miracle Workers" look very easy. Moreover, there is no trace of delaying the timing: the entire series consists of seven 20-minute episodes, which are aired once a week. You can watch them as they appear, or wait for the whole season and swallow it whole in a couple of hours.

In Russia, "Wonderworkers" can be legally watched on "Kinopoisk". The episodes are released in the voice acting "Courage-Bambey" simultaneously with the world premiere.