There you have it and let none here dispute the powers of Phil.
Happy Groundhog Day, everyone, though it's already the day after here in Japan. I explained Groundhog Day to many students on February 2nd, as I do every year. Many infer it must be America's version of Setsubun (節分), the Japanese holiday on February 3rd that precedes the first day of spring on the old calendar, February 4th. One Setsubun tradition is throwing soy beans at people wearing demon masks.
But last night I celebrated Groundhog Day by watching, of course, Groundhog Day. This was after whisky and Skyrim and baking muffins so I dozed in and out while watching. But what better movie is there for that than one about a time loop you've seen a million times? To-day I just want to stay in bed eating muffins. I know I shouldn't.
X Sonnet #1814
A mousy menace spiked the tank of fish.
An endless search has yielded guns and dice.
Electric soup has granted Livy's wish.
A weapon trade commenced with giving rice.
The donkey's pace would flatter cats at home.
Required questions sank the function quiz.
Corrupted posts support the polling dome.
A smarter cola tells the tongue to fizz.
The lacking rain reduced the worth of hoods.
In timing late, commuters drop the dew.
Exchanging hate became a fad for goods.
The tempting dead invite the mouse to crew.
Offensive smells were caged with angry kids.
A dragon's gold was proof to any bids.
If you have to live the same point in time over and over, it's nice to have good company. Natasha Lyonne, star of the 2019 NetFlix series Russian Doll, fits the bill admirably. She is the chain smoking heart of a series that effectively combines observational humour, slapstick comedy, fantasy, horror, and psychological drama.
Lyonne, who co-created and co-wrote the series, stars as Nadia, a young woman who finds herself frequently meeting her demise only to magically reappear in her friends' bathroom during her birthday party while Harry Nilsson's "Gotta Get Up" plays.
Apparently a substantial portion of the show's budget went to paying for the right to use this song. It's nice to see a production that knows you need to spend money on things besides special effects and high profile stars sometimes, it's a perfectly chosen song--a better song than "I Got You Babe" but it works in the same way that track does in Groundhog Day. It's sort of wryly chipper, seeming to tease the protagonist by both sympathising with and failing to reflect her predicament at the same time.
It's not exactly like the Groundhog Day time loop--she's not repeating the same day over and over, she's constantly dying, more like in Edge of To-morrow. That film seemed like it was based on the experience of playing a video game and video games are part of the story in Russian Doll--Nadia writes code for games, including one impossibly difficult game that factors in later in the series. But this time loop feels much closer in tone to Groundhog Day--I would be very surprised to learn any of the writers are actually gamers. More than any other time loop story I've read or seen, Russian Doll feels like a sequel to Groundhog Day, a worthy sequel, to be sure.
It really feels like the writers watched Groundhog Day and said, "Okay, how can we develop these themes further?" Art criticism factors into the show a lot and at one point Nadia has a discussion about the potentially moral component of the time loop--Time, like morality, is subjective, as she points out in one clever line. And it's true, why should the universe align with her morality or anyone else's? In the end, maybe it's morality, or it could be interpreted as reality reflecting the protagonist's own repressed needs.
Natasha Lyonne, like Bill Murray, is a perfect comic foil for the circumstance. The time loop plot creates endless opportunities for her to do or say things we know any reasonable person would find crazy but we know are perfectly legitimate, so we can laugh along with her exasperation and well chosen witticisms. And then there's the slapstick; one episode sees her repeatedly falling down the same stairs and dying. The problem of it being unrealistic for a person to sustain so many injuries and still get up to crack wise is removed by the time loop plot device; the more realistic the calamity, the funnier it is.
The first four episodes of the eight hour series are 90% comedy while the second four are more horror and psychological drama, exploring Nadia's repressed issues with her mother (Chloe Sevigny) in ways that make the show feel like a live action version of Neon Genesis Evangelion, complete with an eerie, randomly manifesting child version of Nadia.
A second protagonist is introduced in the fourth episode, Alan (Charlie Barnett), who is also experiencing the same period over and over. This is a fun idea and it works well for both comedy and drama, factoring into the end of the series with a sequence that feels like it may have been inspired by The Merry Wives of Windsor--a homeless man Nadia befriends named Horse (Brendon Sexton III), whose life she tries to save like Bill Murray does with a homeless man in Groundhog Day, inexplicably wears a deer head near the end. The only sense I could make of it was that he was supposed to be Herne the Hunter, the mythological figure Falstaff dresses as at the end of Shakespeare's play. But Nadia is much more of a Falstaff character than anyone else on the show. I was thinking Lyonne seemed like a female Sam Kinison but Nadia compared herself in dialogue (written by Lyonne) to Kinison's arch enemy, Andrew Dice Clay. Either way, she's a breath of fresh air.
I think I might have preferred a lighter touch as far as the fantasy elements go in the last episodes but they are filled with good moments and intriguing ideas. The whole series is good.
Farscape indulges in a Groundhog Day style time loop plot which may remind viewers of Edge of To-morrow/All You Need is Kill in that it involves the protagonist repeatedly glimpsing his own demise (the episode predates the Japanese novel but came six years after the Harold Ramis movie). An episode with a few plot points that feel only halfway thought through, it's still pretty good.
Season 1, Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
The danger of attempting to conform to a specific cultural identity again manifests as D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) abruptly switches from wanting to ignore the survivors of an exploding spacecraft to wanting to help them entirely because the survivors belong to a species traditionally allied with the Luxans, D'Argo's species. D'Argo, whose crime we learn in this episode was even more shameful than the killing of a superior officer, jumps at the opportunity to prove he's a good and true Luxan through and through. It's motive enough to make him ignore every piece of evidence that the survivors might be dangerous.
An older man named Verell (John Clayton) and young woman named Matala (Lisa Hensley) are the only survivors. In inspecting the vessel, Crichton (Ben Browder) is hit by a strange green energy discharge and afterwards finds himself randomly, temporarily transported to moments in the near future. At first, several of these involve Matala, whose overtly seductive manner comes off a bit like Rue McClanahan, sexually assaulting Crichton. The episode's explanation for these scenes is a little vague though not as inexplicable as a bit of information D'Argo imparts in Crichton's absence that Crichton nonetheless seems aware of when trying to convince D'Argo of his time jumping. But maybe the pleasure viewers and writer Babs Greyhosky took in Crichton's ravishment made up for any inconsistencies.
For those attracted to women who are looking for some fan service, Aeryn (Claudia Black) has a temporarily bare midriff in this episode thanks to a kind of unflattering crop top that doesn't last very long. But she also has my favourite line in the episode--in a meeting between her, Zhaan (Virginia Hey), and Crichton, Crichton, beset by another future assault vision from Matala, is compelled to leave the room, muttering, "I'm just gonna get some air." Aeryn, indignant and confused, says, "We have air in here! What is the matter with him?"
. . .
This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here:
