Portlandia is an American sketch comedy television series starring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, set in and around Portland, Oregon, and spoofing the city's reputation as a haven for eccentric hipsters.

The sketches became increasingly Portland-centric, with premises ranging from irate diners at a popular Hawthorne District restaurant registering ridiculous complaints on Yelp to a character's disastrous one-man performance at the city's Hollywood Theatre.

[5] In July 2009, the duo pitched their idea for a full-fledged sketch comedy show to IFC and Lorne Michaels' Broadway Video production company, and the project was quickly approved.

[5] Along with Allison Silverman, a former head writer and executive producer for The Colbert Report, and Portlandia director Jonathan Krisel, Armisen and Brownstein wrote the sketches that appear in the first six episodes.

Guest stars include: Tim Heidecker; Kirsten Dunst; Olivia Wilde; Selma Blair; Chloë Sevigny;Roseanne Barr; Steve Buscemi; Claire Danes; Kristen Wiig; Rose Byrne; Andy Samberg; Rachel Bloom; Ed Begley Jr.; Aimee Mann; Johnny Marr; Sarah McLachlan; k.d.

lang; Jello Biafra; Kurt Vile; Heather Graham; Parker Posey; Michael Nesmith; Glenn Danzig; Aubrey Plaza; Rashida Jones; Anna Gunn; Jane Lynch; Kumail Nanjiani; Jason Sudeikis; Ehren McGhehey; Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam; Greta Gerwig; Edward James Olmos; Brigitte Nielsen; J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr.; Kate Pierson, Cindy Wilson and Fred Schneider of The B-52's; Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age;[9] Gus Van Sant; Tim Robbins; Martina Navratilova; Jeff Goldblum; Juliette Lewis; Joanna Newsom; Annie Clark of St. Vincent; Jack White; Paul Simon; Henry Rollins; Krist Novoselic; Portland Trail Blazers players LaMarcus Aldridge, Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, and Robin Lopez as themselves; and Kyle MacLachlan as a fictional mayor of Portland.

[2][10] Another episode, including a fictionalized music festival similar to Portland's actual MusicfestNW, featured a rock band played by Colin Meloy and Jenny Conlee of The Decemberists; James Mercer of The Shins; Brownstein's Sleater-Kinney bandmates Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss; and Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse.

[16] Most of the sketches on Portlandia feature Armisen and Brownstein playing one of a variety of pairs of characters, most of which appear in multiple episodes.

One of those pairings is "Fred and Carrie", a naturalistic depiction that is supposed to represent versions of the actors as if they were friends living together in a house in Portland.

He noted that "Brownstein and Armisen move so effortlessly between characters, then execute their riffs, tics, styles and voices with such skilled abandon that before long this doesn't seem like satire any longer but a fun house mirror reflection of intensely real people.

"[24] Contrarily, Brian Lowry, writing for Variety, noted that the show was "clearly on a shoestring budget" and said that it featured an "array of tiresome characters" that provided "further proof not everyone deserves a sketch comedy showcase - especially when the premise cuts no deeper than vignettes inspired by the wheat-germy, hippie-ish environs of Portland, Ore."[25] Comedian Jerry Seinfeld is a fan of the show.

Special features include; Extended Scenes, Bloopers, An IFC Behind-the-Scenes Featurette, "Thunder Ant" Sketches, and Audio Commentary by Armisen and Brownstein.