I liked this. I’m leary of TV series that offer up an interesting scenario — but that I can’t trust to have a good resolve. (So, I quit LOST after one or two episodes.) In the case of Russian Doll I just did not care because the production, acting and writing were great quality.
The fact that it was so similar to Groundhog Day was actually a virtue. Bill Murray was excellent in Groundhog Day, but the moral lesson was fuzzy and trite — I had no expectations that Russian Doll would have a decent payoff, so I just enjoyed the ride with no concern for the destination.
I watched it all in the last few days, and I really enjoyed it. Nadia was kind of horrible from the start, but horrible in a way that I really enjoyed watching. Great dialogue and character work.
I’m not sure how exactly they could go forward, at least not with the same premise (same day repeating). But if they explore some other sort of “glitch in the matrix” type scenarios, that don’t cover the same ground, then perhaps. I’ll certainly give the next season a try if it gets one.
Nadia didn’t seem horrible, she seemed like a funny, caring, mostly self-assertive person. In fact she had a room full of friends. Her big flaw was wide-ranging drug use and occasional unprotected sex with strangers — but apparently she wasn’t dying from a STD, and wasn’t addicted to alcohol, cocaine, meth, opioids or sex.
Alan points out that she broke up John’s marriage, but hey, John is portrayed as mostly an adult, so it’s mostly on him. Nadia isn’t portrayed as a compulsive amoral seducer.
Alan, on the other hand, is kind of horrible, with compulsions but no real virtues. I did not enjoy his introduction. Presumably he was required by the “plot”, but I really did not take the plot seriously. I hope there is not a continuation.
I binge-watched it yesterday afternoon, and really enjoyed it!
I honestly don’t get all of the reactions along the lines of “it was pretty much just another Groundhog Day” (a movie I love and have watched, uh, repeatedly). The only similarity is in the idea of a repeating day, but even on that account Russian Doll was different because sometimes she wouldn’t die until the next day. In GD there was no second “repeater” or effects on the rest of the world from the repeats; in RD, no one underwent a personality change or fell in love. And the song that played every time Nadia reset – Harry Nilsson’s “Gotta Get Up” – wasn’t heard by any of the characters: it wasn’t playing at the party, or on the radio, etc. It was only heard by the viewer. Just like the instrumental that played every time Alan reset. I’d heard GD comparisons before I watched it, but found there to be practically no shared elements.
Anyway, I thought it was very well-written and -acted. And I thought the ending was neat. My understanding from a few articles I read (can’t remember details enough to cite anything in particular) is that Lyonne et al haven’t decided yet whether season 2 will be related to the season 1 story or a completely different thing; they might turn RD into an anthology. Whatever they do, I’ll watch.
I recognized him, but had to go to IMDb to remember from where: he played the troubled firefighter candidate Peter Mills in the first few seasons of Chicago Fire.
Ultimately, it was a comedy about a snarky person who is stuck in a (short) time loop who can only break out
by learning an after-school-special type of lesson. And the cause of the loop is never really explained.
Yes, there were a few wrinkles on the formula (with a second person and a ticking-clock scenario); that is almost inevitable, considering one is 101 minutes long and the other is 3+ hours long. But I thought the overall arc was pretty familiar to me.
As I said, I liked it overall, but I was somewhat indifferent to the family drama segments (which didn’t seem like anything ground-breaking) and that was a fair-sized chunk of the series.
Bumping… just binged this last night, looking for something to watch while my wife was out of town visiting her sister. I liked it enough that I will watch it again if she wants to watch it when she gets back. A couple of comments/questions:
It took me about three episodes to remember where I had seen the actor who plays John before. He was one of the two gay men in “Seinfeld” who steal the armoire that Soup Nazi gives to Kramer. (And they also show up in a couple of later episodes.)
The bar on the corner is the one where Luke Cage works in “Jessica Jones”, right? I thought I recognized a couple of other locations from “J.J.” as well.
I thought it was odd that nobody seemed to notice the rotting fruit.
Why did she insist on going down the fire escape after falling down the stairs a few times? Why not just scoot down on her butt?
Was it just me, or was the actor playing Mike doing his best to channel Jack Nicholson?
It starts depressingly and my wife and I wanted to see another episode just to see how much more they could get out of it , then it improved, and by the end of the season we were excited to see the next season. It’s worth watching.
Natasha Lyonne’s recient interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was just *painful *to watch. She clearly didn’t want to be there. Are all her interviews like that?
I was sold when her (ex) boyfriend asked if he was needed to speak to the rabbi because she’d committed a hate crime. Or maybe because of the Harry Nilsson.
I do love Harry Nilsson.
I’ve read that it’s supposed to be a show about the process of therapy. And I can see that- reliving the trauma (dying over and over and, eventually, confronting what her mother did to her) on the way to catharsis. With a religious stop-off to see if God might fix it without needing to acknowledge the past.
Maybe could have been a bit tighter in places, benefitting from fewer episodes, but I enjoyed it.
I binge-watched it 2 or 3 weeks ago and liked it. I’m a fan of time-shifting movies (though I didn’t like Groundhog Day much). Is there a good list where I can see if I’ve missed any movies like this?
Recently I saw, and now recommend, the 2000 film Memento. Not exactly time-shifting, but similar (or rather, reversed!).
Well, I may have gotten to the party late, but I’m sure glad I showed up. I really liked it.
Sure, it borrows from Groundhog Day, but it’s not an out-and-out ripoff. It tells its own unique story from within a similar framework.
Natasha Lyonne was fantastic. It should have been easy to really dislike Nadia, but Lyonne makes it very difficult to do so. There’s far too much humanity under her rough exterior.
I didn’t see the final twist coming, where they each end up in the other’s first timeline. Very clever, and they managed a satisfying resolution without having to overtly explain everything.
Nicely done. I’m interested to see what they do in the next season.
My wife and I enjoyed the show. Watched it back then.
Being from the midwest, what struck me was the lifestyle she had. In some ways, fit stereotypes I have of people from NYC. Brash and rude but kind when pushed. Lots of parties. Shallow relationships with most people. Lots of drugs and alcohol. Now, I’m not saying that’s how people from NYC are, just the stereotype I had.
I watched it then watched it with my wife and thought it held up well. I also liked the subtle clues as to which was which at the end and who ended up “winning.”
I’m curious what they can do in a second season, assuming it’s the same characters. But having that knowledge does open up possibilities when they realize it’s happening again.
Oh, similar note that was brought up. We were pleasantly surprised by Happy Death Day. It had a good story and some good twists and was fun. I sadly heard the second one wasn’t as good.
Finally, a suggestion. If people liked this, we recently rewatched Daybreak, with Taye Diggs, and that was also good! Held up well, I thought.
