Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Pitch Perfect: Bumper In Berlin’ On Peacock, Where Bumper Allen Tries To Cash In On Viral Fame In Germany

Was Adam Devine’s character of Bumper Allen ever the most beloved one in the Pitch Perfect film series? Who knows? But ready or not, a series centering on those films’ “villain” is hitting Peacock just in time for Thanksgiving. Will you want to watch it while digesting the turkey and stuffing?

PITCH PERFECT: BUMPER IN BERLIN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We hear a harmonica, someone clears their throat, then Bumper Allen (Adam Devine) starts an a capella song with his group, the Tonehangers.

The Gist: It’s been ten years since college, and Bumper has still been hanging on, trying to make his a capella dreams come true. The rest of the Tonehangers have moved on to their careers and families, but Bumper is working as a security guard at his alma mater, which provides them rehearsal space. After rehearsing for a big show at a retirement village, bandmate Jason (Jason Jones) asks him if he got the job listing at his company, and is concerned when Bumper tells him he deleted it.

Then Bumper gets a call from old rival Pieter Krämer (Flula Borg); a TikTok a capella video that Bumper made, where he mashes up “99 Luftballons” and “Take On Me”, has become viral in Germany, and Pieter thinks he should take advantage of it while he can. Pieter has already booked Bumper to do the song at Brezelfest, and the goal is to get him a slot at a Unity Day concert in two months. He meets Pieter’s very efficient assistant Heidi (Sarah Hyland), who, like Bumper, likes to take her pills wrapped in cheese.

But Bumper soon finds out that Pieter isn’t exactly the top talent manager he made himself out to be when he can’t even convince his own sister, Thea (Lera Abova), a top club DJ, to play Bumper’s song. He also found out that Pieter’s name has been dragged through the mud in Germany since his group broke up as a result of a lip-synching scandal.

Sensing a bond with Heidi, he goes to a local pub to talk things out with her, but catches her singing on stage and is amazed by her voice; Heidi, on the other hand, thinks she’s still a work in progress. However, she does encourage him to go on stage at the festival the next day. One problem: Gisela (Jameela Jamil), Pieter’s former band mate and girlfriend, comes out on stage directly before Bumper and sings — you guessed it — “99 Luftballons”.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The obvious parallel is the Pitch Perfect movies, but the tone of Bumper In Berlin is also reminiscent of shows like Girls5Eva.

Our Take: The tone that we mentioned above isn’t an accident: The showrunner of Pitch Perfect: Bumper In Berlin is Megan Amram, who is best known for her writing on shows like Parks and Recreation, The Good Place and the very meta web series An Emmy For Megan. She and her writers definitely try to give Bumper In Berlin that self-aware feel while connecting back to the movie series that spawned it.

The humor is less sharp and more sweet, however, and that’s mostly a function of how Devine and Hyland approach their roles. It’s pretty obvious that Amram is setting up a romance between the two, and when they interact, the show settles down from being a meta gagfest and actually has some personality. The two of them have a history together, given that Devine played Hyland’s love interest in a number of episodes of Modern Family. So the chemistry is well-established.

It helps, though, because it grounds a show that’s mostly cartoonish in its other aspects. Cartoonish can be ok, but it’s hard to sustain over an entire season or multiple seasons. What we hope is that Devine takes Bumper in a direction that makes him less naïve and delusional and plays up to the the funny sweet side of Devine’s skillset. Of course, there will be a lot of music in the episodes, but that means that Amram and her staff have less time to get into their narrative and character grooves. In other words, let’s hope they lean on Bumper and Heidi’s relationship — a lot.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: As Bumper watches Gisela do the song he was going to perform, he starts wading back through the crowd in an effort to run away. Pieter and Heidi go after him.

Sleeper Star: Jameela Jamil has been doing a great job dropping into shows and just being silly this year, and we hope she’s equally silly here as Gisela.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I’m so jet-lagged, I don’t even know what time it is. Is it, like, 5?” Bumper says and he and Pieter enter a club to see Thea. “Actually, yes, but it’s the other 5 and it’s tomorrow!” Pieter replies. Given that it was daylight outside, we’re not sure if he’s talking about it being 5 in the morning. We guess he was but aren’t really sure.

Our Call: STREAM IT, but only because we like watching Adam Devine and Sarah Hyland in scenes together. Otherwise Pitch Perfect: Bumper In Berlin is too silly for its own good, especially because the silly isn’t even all that funny.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.