I Think You Should Leave Creator and Star Tim Robinson Wins First Emmy Award

By Russ Burlingame

Last night at the Emmy Awards, Tim Robinson took home Best Actor in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series, for his role in I Think You Should Leave, a series he created for Netflix and stars in. The acclaimed series debuted in 2019, and has scored a number of Critics Association and Writers Guild awards, but this is Robinson's (and the series') first Emmy win. It was also nominated for Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series but lost out to Carpool Karaoke: The Series. 

I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson centers on a lot of cringe and surreal humor, usually seeing its characters humiliated, and then having to try and dig their way out of an awkward situation. It debuted to huge critical praise and almost immediately got picked up for a second season in 2019, but after a long COVID delay, only finally released its next set of episodes in the summer of 2021. It officially scored a season 3 renewal back in May, although for months before that there had been reports that work on the third season was underway.

Since premiering, I Think You Should Leave quickly solidified itself as a new titan of sketch comedy, sitting at Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a 96% approval rating for its first season and Certified Fresh with a perfect 100% approval rating for its second. A former Saturday Night Live writer, Robinson has previously admitted that some of his rejected sketches from the NBC sketch series were re-purposed and used in the new Netflix series, which is produced by SNL's The Lonely Island (Akiva Schaffer, Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone).

"Zach [Kanin] and I just found ourselves writing a lot of scenes like that, where the person is refusing to admit they've done something wrong, or lying, and will do anything to cover that up," Robinson told GQ. "So it became the theme of the whole show because we kept gravitating towards writing those scenes."

The series features Lonely Island stars, who also serve as producers, and guest stars like Vanessa Bayer, Steven Yeun, Will Forte, Fred Willard, Tim Heidecker, Andy Samberg, and Bob Odenkirk.

Here's Netflix's official synopsis for the series: 

Detroiters star and Saturday Night Live alum Tim Robinson's hilarious new six-part series, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, pokes fun at life's most bizarre and mundane situations. Viewers will see Robinson and a few of his famous friends navigate awkward workplace drama, host an intervention in a Garfield-themed house, talk their way out of a babysitter's fake hit and run, and much more. The series is produced by The Lonely Island. I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson will launch globally on Netflix, Tuesday, April 23.

The first two seasons of I Think You Should Leave are now streaming on Netflix.

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