If You're Not Watching Rutherford Falls, You're Missing Out
Rutherford Falls, one of TV’s first Native sitcoms, is a testament to the show’s creators Ed Helms, Mike Schur, and Sierra Teller Ornelas (the first Native showrunner of a television comedy) and its writers’ ability to harness the nuance of the human experience.It’s also just really funny. “I feel like Native people have always known that we’re funny,” Teller Ornelas tells me over the phone on the afternoon of the show’s premiere on . “This was just getting an opportunity for everyone else to see it.” Jana Schmieding, who was a writer on the show before auditioning for and landing the starring role opposite Helms, tells me over Zoom, “I'm just so filled with the feeling of bringing laughter to my community in the most fulfilling way.