{"id":106858,"date":"2019-02-04T14:43:38","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T14:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=106858"},"modified":"2019-02-04T14:46:47","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T14:46:47","slug":"russian-doll-season-1-review-a-unique-look-at-existentialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/russian-doll-season-1-review-a-unique-look-at-existentialism\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Doll Season 1 review: a unique look at existentialism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Amy Poehler, Natasha Lyonne and Leslye Headland take an idiosyncratic look at existentialism and what it means to be a good person in their new comedy-drama <em><strong>Russian Doll<\/strong><\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">When software engineer and recreational drug user Nadia Volvokov (Lyonne) leaves her birthday party early for a wild night with a stranger, the celebrations are cut short when she\u2019s hit by a car and killed. To her surprise, she\u2019s suddenly back at the same birthday party, staring into the same bathroom mirror, but alive. Things feel a little deja vu-y as she leaves again, this time looking for her lost cat, before she falls into the East River and drowns. Back in that bathroom again, still very much alive, the same thing keeps happening to her \u2014 suddenly dying before being inexplicably resurrected \u2014 and, like any normal person, she\u2019s determined to get to the bottom of it. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Though it\u2019s heaps of fun, <em><strong>Russian Doll<\/strong><\/em> offers more than just an amusing premise with a gimmick. Woven into the satire, cliffhangers and often soap opera-esque dramatic turns is a genuine desire to figure out what life is about, and what we need to do to make the most of it. It asks the big questions while retaining its accessibility and avoiding becoming pretentious. It\u2019s also somehow nothing at all like <em><strong>Groundhog Day<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<em>or <strong>Happy Death Day<\/strong><\/em>, so don\u2019t even bother comparing them. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The whimsy-filled first half of the season lives up to its intriguing trailer and takes its sweet time with the set-up, but nothing ever drags. It\u2019s filled with laugh-out-loud gags, the deaths (which involve a gas explosion, freezing to death in the park, a faulty elevator, four falls down the stairs, and more) get more and more inventive, and it\u2019s hard to watch Natasha Lyonne in anything without falling in love with her, whatever kind of character she\u2019s playing. The second half, however, takes the story and the premise \u2014 including a big sci-fi element \u2014 to a whole other plane of existence. It\u2019s simultaneously foreboding and optimistic, and wholly unique. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Natasha Lyonne keeps coming back to life in the brilliant Russian Doll<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":106862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[8,207],"tags":[6390],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Screen-Shot-2019-02-04-at-14.46.00.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106858"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}