Russian Doll


Okay, the episodes are short, about half an hour long, and there are not too many. 
This is a relief after sitting through 13 hours of Marvel stories

So, the protagonist Max is a walking stereotype of a New Yorker- they gender-flipped the characters which I think was a mistake. Hence a lot of Max's dialogue sounds male. In fact, it sounds like someone trying to do a Woody Allen / Nu Yawk impression. Max is a coder, and she lives in a world of Lesbians, Deli cats, one night stands, and casual drug use. Max is, of course Jewish We will have a run in with a rabbi later, and much later we have one of the older actors from the Soprano's has a brief cameo  
Telling Max not to smoke.

Anyway, Max keeps relieving the same party over and over. Waking up in the same lavatory on her birthday. She is killed off at the end of the first episode, which does shock and keeps dying in various ways, freezing to death in one episode Falling down the stairs then.killed in a car crash.  Indeed Max narrowly escapes getting sexually assaulted. She tries to voluntary commit herself and is left at the mercy of an ambulance crew.
 This goes on and on until Max meets Alan, they are both trapped in an elevator and both remarkably calm about their impending crash to earth. We do have clues that life is passing by outside, rotting fruit and plants

I loathed the fact that the cat was called Oatmeal.

I did think what was good, was they showed Alan's gf without makeup

It is basically a story about two people trapped in hell. 
A hell of there own making, the male protagonist Alan is different. A much meeker character than Max
Alan  lives in a sterile home and is being cheated on by one of the guests at Max's party. There are several red herrings and a quite dark episode where we see Max's past
Gender flipping Alan I think has a problem as Alan is just too physically big and imposing for the dialogue to match his physical presence. There are a few fights scenes when we can tell Alex is holding back.

I liked Russian Doll though despite this  It was a pretty decent few hours of television.

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