(TV Series) Russian Doll Season 1 - An Intelligent Drama Comedy of Time Loop with Few Surprising Twists

It's funny how I never watched this critically acclaimed series in the past. Probably because I did not read the premise and ended up not realizing it was a topic that I really loved, i.e. time loop. Anyway since it was promoted that 2nd season was coming soon, I decided to give it a try more than a week ago. So here goes.

Brief Story Line

Nadia (Natasha Lyonne - Orange is the New Black TV series, Show Dogs etc) was celebrating her 36th birthday at the house of her best friend Maxine (Greta Lee - Gemini etc). In the party, there were a lot of Nadia and Maxine's friends, including Nadia's old boyfriend John Reyes (Yul Vasquez - Midnight, Texas TV series, Captain Phillips etc), her godmother Ruth (Elizabeth Ashely - Evening Shade TV series etc), and later on a young man named Alan Zaveri (Charlie Barnett - The Stand In, Chicago Fire TV series etc).

When Nadia wanted to leave the party, she got into an accident and somehow reawaken in the party. Nadia later realized that she was caught in an endless time loop and had to find ways to escape it.

So how would the story conclude? You can find them all in this interesting series.

End of Brief Story Line

I have seen quite a number of time loop movies and series in the past and the premise had always intrigued me. But this one was really unique and set itself apart with one totally intelligent and amazing twist that I had not seen before. This twist made the time loop element became really fascinating and raised my curiosity level. In this part, I thought the series creators were really awesome. In case you are wondering, the series was created by Natasha Lyonne herself together with Leslye Headland (screenwriter of Bachelorette, Sleeping With Other People) and Amy Poehler (director of Moxie and part of Saturday Night Live cast). 

Aside from the really unique time loop, the series was also interesting due to the performance of Lyonne (she was also co-executive producer and directed one of the episodes, along with Headland who directed 4 other episodes and Jamie Babbit for the other 3). There were 8 episodes overall for the first season and each episode was between 24-33 minutes, so it would not take a long time to finish it. The series was so well received that it was having very high critical ratings and nominated & won several prestigious awards.

Other cast that I thought were quite excellent was Charlie Barnett and Elizabeth Ashley. Oh there was also the appearance of Chloë Sevigny (Boys Don't Cry, Big Love TV series) as Lenora, Nadia's mother. Despite only showing up briefly, her character likely left good impression as she was promoted as series regular in the second season. There were also minor support characters such as Mike Kershaw (Jeremy Bobb), Horse (Brendan Sexton III), Lizzy (Rebecca Henderson) and few others.  

For a drama comedy series, it has some pretty dark humor and not the hilarious laugh out loud type. There were some moments that I felt rather heavy and sad too. Of all the episodes, I really enjoyed the 4th episode and also episode 7. The final 8th episode still managed to provide another twist that I thought was brilliant. It has a rather unconventional ending that was quite satisfying. 

Overall to me this series was pretty entertaining. If you like time loop stories, then you would definitely enjoy this one as the element was strong and it has that surprising twist. However, despite branded as comedy, to me this is not the kind of light and totally pleasant show. And even though it would take little time to finish due to its short duration, it still felt heavy enough and require some concentration to appreciate the intelligence of the concept. In the end, I could understand the fondness of critics for the series due to its smartness. So give this a try if you are fans of such genre.  

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars