The presence of these two performers - Goldsberry a Tony winner for “Hamilton,” Bareilles a prolific recording artist - speaks to the show’s interest in making the music genuinely credible, and it largely succeeds at skewering a certain stripe of proudly idea-free pop while imitating it too. It’s a funny visual, elevated to perfection by her character informing us that it was made by “Sealy Posturepedic for Alfa Romeo.”) And Bareilles roots the show in a human-scale reality, suggesting the ways in which an attempt to pull off an entertainment industry reemergence later in life might disrupt a comfortable rut. (Noting that Missy Elliott famously slept in a car-shaped bed, Goldsberry’s diva shows off her bed-shaped car. Goldsberry is most effectively committed to the part - she ends every performance with a vocal run that extends beyond reason - and, in flashback, her appearance on a home-tour series crystallizes the show’s sense of the early-2000s pop scene as vacuously extreme. The show’s ensemble is split: Bareilles’ and Pell’s characters are vaguely embarrassed for the parasitic figures they encounter on the path back to the center of culture while Philipps’ and Goldsberry’s glitter with sheer ambition.Īll four performances are quite strong. Busy Philipps and Renée Elise Goldsberry’s characters, by contrast, exist adjacent to celebrity - Philipps as a would-be influencer in the modern evangelical movement and Goldsberry as a relentless self-promoter who has constructed an image of wealth from limited circumstances. Paula Pell, recently emerging as an on-camera star, plays a character who’s pivoted to a life of quiet dignity when rehearsals resume, she FaceTimes in from her dentistry practice. The other members, less concerned with songcraft, add new tones to the story. Given a hint of potential success, Bareilles’ character loses herself in a fantasy of saying what’s been on her mind: A standout episode has her in a nonstop songwriting jag. When a sample of their signature song resurfaces, the members of Girls5eva - a quintet reduced when one member died in an accident - reunite and set out to reclaim past glory. Having long since left (or been left by) stardom, they’re in versions of normal lives, with lead actor Sara Bareilles playing a character who’s stopped thinking too much about her past. We see the titular group, a pop quartet, both in their heyday and in present tense. Created by “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” writer Meredith Scardino, “Girls5eva” is a sophisticated joke-delivery machine that will hold special appeal to culture obsessives, and more evidence that NBCUniversal’s small-but-mighty streamer Peacock punches above its weight. Happily, “Girls5eva,” about a former girl group reuniting in middle age to attempt a comeback, is a promising offering in its early outings.
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