Russian Doll seasons 1-2 (blu-ray TV series review).
Russian Doll could have easily ground to a halt. After leaving her own 36th birthday party, computer programmer Nadia Vulvokov (played by Natasha Lyonne) gets hit by a car and then finds herself back in the bathroom at the party. She explores what happened, but with each wrong step—like slipping down the stairs—she dies and ends up back in the bathroom. It would be easy for Nadia to stay around the party, but she finds she can move on to the next day and sees solving other people’s problems as a way to break the cycle. However, it doesn’t work. She keeps dying and returning to the bathroom at the party.
Eventually, she comes across Alan Zaveri (played by Charlie Barnett), who is experiencing a similar problem, and their ‘deaths’ become synchronized. Despite shaking up their lifepaths to break the pattern, neither can find a solution. The series allows them to try out all kinds of theories, only to discover they are wrong. Presumably, had they found the solution, they wouldn’t be alive to learn from it.
In many respects, a theme of dying and coming back again and again has been explored in shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation and Stargate SG-1, but this is the first time it’s done in a more grounded, terrestrial setting. The term Russian Doll references a Matryoshka doll, with a smaller doll inside each layer, symbolizing the layers Nadia peels back to uncover what’s inside.
Interestingly, the second season introduces a quantum leap twist when Nadia finds herself inhabiting her mother’s pregnant body much of the time, occasionally seeing them separate in the same place. Her mother, Lenora (played by Chloë Sevigny), is a real mess but is pregnant with Nadia. This situation provides a clue to uncovering what happened to some Budapest gold stolen by the Nazis during World War II, as her own grandmother was involved. Occasionally, Nadia returns to the present, though it’s unclear how she does this—perhaps the key lies in getting on a train.
Alan, meanwhile, doesn’t appear until episode four of the second season, when he finds himself in East Berlin as his mother, Dr. Zaveri (played by Lillias White), who is attempting to cross under the Berlin Wall. However, she/he seeks a more conventional way to get into West Berlin. In many respects, this subplot is secondary to Nadia’s adventures but provides insight into Alan’s life during this time.
The second season becomes increasingly surreal towards the end, but each 30-minute episode is packed with content, making it easy to see why it’s receiving plaudits in the USA. Is it science fiction or fantasy? It’s hard to say. Just because we’re not given a clear explanation for what’s happening doesn’t make it easy to categorize. If anything, you watch to find out what happens next. I first saw Natasha Lyonne in Poker Face, which made me want to check out this earlier production. Both series feature intelligent writing and unexpected twists, and you can probably find them on Netflix if you don’t want to buy the Blu-ray/DVD versions. The fact that Russian Doll, in both seasons, takes something that has been done before and adds an even better spin makes it remarkable.
GF Willmetts
June 2024
(pub: 2022Production. 2 blu-ray disks. 15 * 30 minute episodes. Price: varies. ASIN:
LG-M1534. NB I had to pull a Japanese release but all I had to do was turn off the Japanese sub-titles)
cast: Natasha Lyonne, Charlie Barnett, Greta Lee, Elizabeth Ashley and countless more
