Feature Story
There is nothing cozier than snuggling up on the couch for a movie night. These days, viewers scroll through streaming libraries until finding the perfect film to suit the evening, but before the domination of subscription services, this process more than likely began and ended with a trip to the local Blockbuster Video.
While this tradition has long since changed, the inperson video rental dream is still very much alive for employees and customers alike in Netflix's brand-new sitcom “Blockbuster,” which premieres Thursday, Nov. 3.
Telling the tale of the franchise's last remaining store, the Blockbuster team is fearlessly led by their eternally optimistic manager Timmy, portrayed by “Fresh Off the Boat” star Randall Park. Despite the branch's lonesome status in the movie rental business, Timmy does his best to remain undaunted by the news, remaining forever determined to keep his Blockbuster family intact.
Park was “Blockbuster's” first revealed cast member when the series was announced nearly a year ago, followed by further exciting news in February: sitcom queen Melissa Fumero was joining him.
Fumero, who recently won the 2022 Imagen Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for her role as Amy Santiago in “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” stars as Eliza, Timmy's co-worker and possible (pretty obvious) crush.
The “Blockbuster” cast also includes J.B. Smoove (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) as Timmy's friend Percy, who is also the landlord of the Blockbuster branch's building; Kamaia Fairburn (“Holly Hobbie”) as Kayla, Percy's daughter and a Blockbuster employee whose sarcasm often goes over Timmy's head; Tyler Alvarez (“American Vandal”) as Blockbuster employee Carlos, whose ambitions include both accounting and film directing; Madeleine Arthur (“Snowpiercer”) as Hannah, Carlos' friend who also works at the video store; and Olga Merediz (“Orange Is the New Black”) as Connie, the amusingly deadpan mother figure among the Blockbuster staff.
The official trailer for “Blockbuster,” released by Netflix in October, reveals a bit of what the store is up against, including Percy handing down an eviction notice, Timmy looking over a trashed store and some uninvited mouse guests living within some of the DVD cases. While Timmy struggles to keep his beloved branch in business, some of his employees struggle to keep their lives on track.
Eliza admits in the trailer that she isn't exactly “stoked to be suddenly working the same job [she] had in high school,” especially given the unexpected dissolution of her marriage. Carlos, meanwhile, tries his best to remain positive about his choice to study accounting despite his passion for film, telling Hannah, “accounting is basically like the film of numbers.”
“Blockbuster's” complex cast of characters is what drew Park to the series. He shared with Entertainment Weekly that, “there's just so much history and so many complicated feelings, but also just feelings of real love and camaraderie.” Park added that the script “just had so much heart.”
Part of that heartwarming feeling was getting the working-class characters just right. As Park put it to EW: “I feel like this show captures that perfectly and it doesn't make a huge statement about it; it just reflects the reality of our world.”