‘Miracle Workers’ dish comedy
The humor of God is heavenly. Preview,
When Steve Buscemi plays God, he really is just a slob like one of us.
Buscemi gets otherworldly in TBS’ “Miracle Workers” (Tuesday, 10:30 EST/ PST, ★★★☆), a limited comedy series co-starring Daniel Radcliffe that imagines heaven as an “Office Space”-style corporation (Heaven Inc.), with angels toiling as drones in the departments of dirt and male nipples.
It is, despite the heavenly moniker, a rather hellish interpretation of the afterlife that only gets worse when God decides to end the world, mostly because he’s bored and depressed. A ragtag group of angels, including under- achieving prayer-answerer Craig (Radcliffe); up-and-coming employee Eliza (Geraldine Viswanathan); archangel Sanjay (Karan Soni); and God’s belabored assistant, Rosie (Lolly Adefope), try to save the Earth. How do they do this? By winning a bet with God that they can get two awkward young adults to share a kiss.
It’s a ridiculous, unwieldy concept that at first feels too slight to jell as a cohesive story. Especially in the first two episodes, the tone and writing are off. The dark subject matter of the imminent apocalypse doesn’t quite jibe with the characters’ sunny disposition. A weak running gag about a newscaster who has to report horrible stories about amazing, good-hearted people is repeated ad nauseam.
Things don’t get heavenly until the third episode, a long time to wait in a miniseries with six installments. But (especially as a binge-watch) the four final episodes are strong enough to redeem the show.
In later episodes the series focuses on the great actors: When Radcliffe, Viswanathan, Soni and Adefope play off each other, “Workers” finds its miracles.
Buscemi’s slothful, an all-knowing creator is a reliable comedy engine, and the actor leans into every gross, idiotic line he’s given.
Radcliffe is delightful as the dorky coworker who ends up making coffee for everyone else because he’s such a pushover.
But the real star of the series is Viswanathan. She’s an absolutely magnetic presence after a breakout performance in last year’s “Blockers,” and she continues to show an apt talent for comedy.
Its short run makes “Workers” not a particularly earth-shattering series. But it’s a charming, chipper story that suggests humans are inevitably good. And in a world drowning in cynicism and terrible news, it never hurts to see positivity about the human existence.