BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — The new CBS half-hour comedy “DMV” looks at all the fun and silliness that is so often associated with a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The new Monday night comedy is based on award-winning author Katherine Heiny’s short story that offered a peek into the world of the quirky and lovable characters making minimum wage while doing a thankless job where customers are annoyed before they even walk in the door.
Executive producer Matt Kuhn (“How I Met Your Mother”) explains the vision of the show is to explore all the fun and heart of everyday working life. Despite the specific setting of the series, Kuhn is convinced the audience will see a lot of similarities to their place of work to the one in his new workplace comedy.
He admits there is one big difference between his show and other offices. The DMV staff is trying to do their job with 200 people ready to scream at them all day.
“So, thank you to all the DMV workers nationwide,” Kuhn says. “You’re doing a tremendous service, and quite literally working where the rubber meets the road.
“Our show explores life on the other side of the plexiglass. The good people who work at the DMV mostly don’t want to be there any more than you do. And they’re doing their best to help you and get through their day, often navigating seemingly conflicting and frustrating regulations to do so.”
Emerging from all the doom and gloom is Colette (Harriet Dyer), a DMV worker desperately trying to retain the last bit of hope she has that the job won’t always be awful. She not only has to convince herself, but fellow employees played by Tim Meadows, Tony Cavalero, Molly Kearney, Gigi Zumbado and Alex Tarrant.
Dyer comes to “DMV” while continuing as the co-writer, co-creator and star of the Australian series “Colin from Accounts.” The second season of that series is available on Paramount+ while the third is in the works.
When not on the “DMV” set, Dyer returns to the keyboard to produce the next season of “Colin” scripts. She jokes that it is only possible because she cloned herself and she doesn’t have to write for her CBS series.
“Physical comedy keeps showing up for me, but I love it. I think the writers just have been doing such awesome jobs at writing joke jokes, but they’ve given all of us stuff.,” Dyer says. “I think the more we write the physical stuff, the more we get into it.
“I’m a theater kid, so I really, really like it, and I probably lean into it. So maybe that’s why it keeps coming up. Also, I wrote the ‘Colin’ stuff, so I only have myself to blame for that.”
So far there have been more accolades than blame. The first season of “Colin” earned her two Gotham TV Awards for Outstanding Performance and Breakthrough Comedy Series categories. Most recently, the series earned a nomination for Best International Programme for the 2025 BAFTA Television Awards.
The Aussie actress also starred opposite Ana Gasteyer in the NBC comedy series “American Auto” and co-starred in “The Invisible Man” in 2020.
Having had the pressures of writing while starring in a TV series has given Dyer a great respect for the writers on “DMV.”
“I learn the lines with more discipline than I do on ‘Colin,’ because it’s just me and Patty [her husband and “Colin” co-star Patrick Brammall], and I don’t have to please anyone there,” Dyer says. “But it makes me much more of a good girl reading someone else’s lines, because I want to get them right for them.
“It’s weirdly more freeing because all I have to do is say the lines that they have picked. I don’t have to think about them, and whether I chose the right line or not. So, it’s a nice thing to do, to be someone else’s actor.”
Along with the scripts, Dyer had some practical background to help her understand the wild world of the DMV. She got her driver’s license while growing up in Australia but needed an American one once she moved here.
Her introduction to that world came through the Hollywood DMV.
“I was scared to go. But I was like 30. I could drive. I had been driving my adult life. The lady was in such a bad mood, it was so DMV,” Dyer says. “Then at the end, she was like, ‘well, you got 12 errors.’
“I was like, ‘Oh, [expletive deleted].’ Then I get inside, and I was like, ‘Oh, that was the meanest way of saying that I passed.’ She was so unhappy that I passed.”
“DMV” airs at 8:30 p.m. Mondays on CBS and then will be available through the streaming service Paramount+.
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