DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Contributors

ALEX STRACHAN

MIKE HUGHES

KIM AKASS

MONIQUE NAZARETH

ROGER CATLIN

GARY EDGERTON

TOM BRINKMOELLER

GERALD JORDAN

NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
 
 
 
RUSSIAN DOLL
February 1, 2019  | By David Bianculli

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

 

MINISERIES PREMIERE: Actress Natasha Lyonne and comedian Amy Poehler teamed with Sleeping with Other People writer Leslye Headland to create this new limited series, a sort of slightly darker spin on Groundhog Day. Lyonne, familiar as Nicky in Orange Is the New Black (and, long before that, as Opal in Pee-Wee’s Playhouse), plays Nadia, a young New York single woman – who could have been a girl from Girls – who wakes to the sound of Nilsson’s “Gotta Get Up” and attends a party in her honor. But from that point on, everything spirals out of control, until she dies. And then wakes up to the same song, confronting a slightly different reality. Rinse and repeat – and while I watched all of Russian Doll with interest, it seemed too slight when it finally reached a concrete end. Worth the voyage? Probably. Satisfying aftertaste? Depends on your enthusiasm up to that point. But Lyonne is good throughout, and it’s fun to see Elizabeth Ashley in a small role as Nadia’s therapist. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.

 
 
 
 
 
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