It's the job nobody wants, but the hangout you won't want to miss.
We work at the DMV. Helping people is not our job.
An American workplace Sitcom that follows a group of DMV employees (Tim Meadows, Harriet Dyer, Tony Cavalero, Molly Kearney, Alex Tarrant, and Gigi Zumbado) as they navigate their miserable lives and deal with an equally unhappy public.
The show began airing on October 13, 2025 on CBS, and ended on May 11, 2026.
Tropes for the series:
- Alliterative Title: Stick Shift.
- And Starring: "And Tim Meadows".
- Ascended Extra: Brent started off as a one-off guest sport to illustrate how annoying DMV customers can be. As of the middle of the first season, he’s dating Ceci, has a backstory as a Hollywood producer, and acts as a foil to Noa.
- Asymmetrically Jacked: When Barb has her medical boot removed in "Power Shift", she finds that the calf on the leg with the boot is now half as thin as the other one.
- Awful Wedded Life: Gregg mentions how his marriage is only successful because he and his wife barely see each other and was happy on his 60th birthday to watch a show for an hour before she got home.
- Big Damn Kiss: Subverted in the final episode when Colette and Noa finally kiss... and she feels nothing. She tries it again a couple more times, with the same result.
- Couch Gag: The animation of the cars on the opening logo changes in each episode.
- Dangerous Senior Driver: In the pilot, Colette gives a little old lady a driving test, and she ends up mowing down the traffic cones of the obstacle course, as well as several prop pedestrians.
- Department of Major Vexation: A rare example of this trope seen from the point of view of its employees, who are as much victims of an uncaring bureaucracy as the people they attend.
- Driving Test: Being set in a DMV, there is at least one per episode.
- Face Doodling: In "Blindspot", Gregg and Vic stake out a poster to see who is drawing "rocket ships" on them. They both fall asleep, and Vic has a "rocket ship" drawn on his forehead.
- Feathered Fiend: In "Drive-ory Tower", a territorial crow attacks Vic.
- Girls vs. Boys Plot: In "Power Shift", Colette notes that WNBA star Renee Montgomery is at the DMV and Vic brags that he could beat her. Colette convinces Renee to play against Vic, hoping to see her humiliate him. To her shock and dismay, Vic wins in a close match, but then Colette learns that Renee was going easy on him because he told her he was dying. Once the trick is exposed, they rematch and Renee completely smokes Vic, who is completely exhausted. Then Renee fakes an injury so that Colette could sink the winning basket. Which she does by accident.
- Heat Wave: "Stay in Your Lane" has everyone deal with an unusually hot day that has one employee quitting due to the stress of the job and Colette trying to keep her crush, Noa, from possibly quitting by looking for ways to keep the building cool, with disastrous results.
- Innocent Innuendo: In 'Stay in Your Lane'', Barbara keeps referring to the main DMV office in Sacramento as "the Big Sac." She seems unaware of how dirty it sounds, even as she talks about massaging it or being afraid of getting "the shaft."
- The Klutz: Barb is very accident prone, constantly tripping up, falling off ladders, or knocking things over. She wears a medical boot for nearly the entire run due to stepping on a stone prior to the start of the series; when she gets it taken off, she promptly breaks her foot again. On the final episode, she even gets hit by a car!
- The Main Characters Do Everything: Justified for Colette, Gregg, and Vic as they are the only driving instructors. Also justified for Barb who is the manager. On the other hand, Ceci and Noa are two employees out of a pool of dozens that constantly seem to get roped into the antics of the main gang.
- Mr. Fanservice:
- Noa is a handsome, athletic, charming young man. Colette at least finds him very attractive.
- Subverted with Vic, a Dumb Jock who tries way too hard and comes off as annoying instead.
- Non-Promotion: In "Stick Shift", Barb gives Vic the title of Supervising Test Driver in an attempt to motivate him to behave more professionally, likening it to a carrot on a stick. Instead, Vic becomes even more of a douche than he already was and harasses Gregg.Gregg: You give Vic a carrot, and he uses it as a stick to hit me with it. Give him a stick, and he'll eat it.
- Not Me This Time: In "Blindspot", someone is vandalizing Barb's hygiene posters by drawing "rocket ships" on them. Gregg accuses Vic, since this is the sort of immature thing he does all the time. Vic denies that it's him, and the two of them stake out a poster to see who is right. The culprit turns out to be a little kid, who actually was drawing rocket ships.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: In "Don't Kill the Job", Gregg teaches Noa to do his job as slow and inefficiently as possible, because if he does the job too well it raises expectations that lead to more responsibilities, thus "killing" the job for him.
- One-Word Title: DMV and "Pilot".
- Paying in Coins: Brent, the guy from the pilot who couldn't get his Real ID, is back with all the necessary paperwork. Unfortunately, Noa tells him that he has to pay a late fee of over $2,000, plus a 2% fee when he tries to pay with his credit card. He later returns to pay cash... in the form of a wheelbarrow full of pennies just to spite Noa. Vic foils his plan by exchanging one of the pennies for a Canadian penny; Brent is Crazy-Prepared and has an extra penny on his pocket, but then Vic and Noa point out that the extra Canadian penny could be construed as a bribe, leaving Brent to drive himself crazy trying to find it.
- Plot Allergy: In "Stick Shift", Colette gives Noa a harmonica, which he plays constantly. Ceci gets sick of it and coats the harmonica with her nail biting-deterring nail polish so he can't play it. Unfortunately, Noa is allergic to cayenne pepper, one of the main ingredients of the polish, and Ceci and Colette have to search for an EpiPen before it kills him.
- The Pollyanna: The chief aspect of Colette’s personality in contrast to her coworkers. She has her share of frustrations but she’s far more enthusiastic about her job and tries to impose that positive world view on the gang. Especially, Vic and Greg. This sets her up for a lot of Break the Cutie plots.
- Ponzi Scheme: In "Payday", Barb is caught in a pyramid scheme involving gloves. Colette recognizes the scam for what it is and tries to get Barb out of it... and gets pulled into it instead. Ceci then tries to get Colette out and gets in as well. The three finally come to their senses when they get horrible rashes from the gloves.
- Reality-Changing Miniature: In "Blindspot", Ceci keeps a miniature of the DMV office as part of her practicing witchcraft. In The Stinger, she accidentally knocks over the miniature of Barb, and at the same time, Barb, who is in a ladder, suddenly falls down. Ceci is convinced that she caused Barb's accident.
- Remember the New Guy?: The final episode, "Impact Will Be Felt", introduces two investigators who have been observing the East Hollywood DMV all this time. A montage of scenes from earlier in the season plays, with shots of the two characters intercut awkwardly.
- Running Gag: Gregg's chair keeps dropping whenever he sits on it.
- Secretly Wealthy: In "Payday", Gregg discovers that Noa comes from a wealthy family. He claims to have cut himself off, but he actually has a financial advisor running his finances for him. After finding out, the others realize that being a sheltered son of rich people explains his naiveté.
- Short Titles: DMV.
- Skewed Priorities: On "Fourth Wheel", the new test driver Robin (guest star Anna Camp) tells Colette that she is icing her out of the group so she can be the "star of the DMV". When Colette tells Gregg and Vic, they refuse to believe her, but they turn on Robin when they realize the cookies she claimed were homemade were actually from Subway.
- Snowball Lie: Colette creates these often, and they usually become more complicated as coworkers are brought in. One example is her telling an old friend she is a vet: Vic thinks she means combat veteran instead of veterinarian, plus he adds himself to the fantasy in the role of Colette's husband.
- Special Guest:
- Mark Feuerstein as Brent, a man not happy with the service at the DMV as he tries to get real ID for a summer trip.
- Leslie Jones as the personal assistant of the Sacramento office manager in the episode "Next Window."
- WNBA player Renee Montgomery As Herself in "Power Shift."
- Anna Camp as Robin, the conceited niece of the DMV director in "Fourth Wheel.
- Zoe Lister-Jones as Dr. Jacobs, whom Barb recruits to diagnose the doctor-averse Vic during her drivers test in "Drive-ory Tower".
- Spicy Latina: Ceci. Short-tempered, dresses flamboyantly, acts catty, etc.
- Status Quo Is God: In "Power Shift", Barb finally gets the medical boot she’s been wearing since the start of the show removed. At the very end of the episode, she breaks her foot again.
- Stepping Out to React: In the Cold Open for "Hot Gurlz", Gregg announces at a morning meeting that he's planning to sue the DMV for not replacing his faulty chair. Barb excuses herself and walks into her office to scream and break stuff.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: In "Hot Gurlz", Colette flirts with Miguel, Ceci's cousin who is fixing the wiring. He agrees to a date with her, but when he steps down from the ladder, he's revealed to be shorter than her. Colette is unable to handle it because she had Height Angst as a child due to a growth spurt during middle school, when she was called "Giraffe Girl".
- Token Minority: Ceci (Latina), Gregg (Black), Noa (Indigenous New Zealander).
- Voodoo Doll: Ceci's diorama of the DMV may have this effect. When she accidentally knocks over the Barb figure, the real Barb falls down.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Played with. Brent thinks he’s facing off against a Big Bad in an epic showdown. For Noa, however, he’s just an ordinary annoying customer. As time goes on, Noa breaks and comes to see Brent as a nemesis. Then Brent goes into the wrong genre again. He thinks Noa and him are in a buddy comedy movie. A baffled Noa says, “We’re famously enemies”.
- X Days Since: In "Payday", there is a sign written on a dry board counting down the days until payday. Barb is shown changing the number throughout the episode. By the time the day arrives, the marker she was using is dried out.
- You Have to Believe Me!: In "Fourth Wheel", Colette learns that Robin the new girl is planning to replace her as the girl of the test drivers group. Her coworkers won't believe her, no matter how much she tries, and they only get outraged when they learn Robin was passing off Subway cookies as homemade. Eventually, Colette gives up trying to convince the others since the cookie thing seems to land better.
- You Say Tomato: In the series finale, Vic works on a resume, but initially pronounces it "Ree-soom".