7 Shows Like Russian Doll Now That You've Finished Season 2

Mostly, Russian Doll feels like an entity unto itself. It is so singularly of New York City and of Natasha Lyonne (the star and one of the creators, along with Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland), it is so smart and surprising with the way it uses time loops and time travel to tell a story without being overpowered by the device. It finds comedy in unexpected places and tackles big subjects without being cloying. What do you watch after that? 

Well, instead of getting stuck in your own time loop watching Seasons 1 and 2 of Russian Doll over and over (honestly, doesn't sound terrible), here are a few other shows and movies that might scratch certain Russian Doll-esque itches, whether that be time travel or just needing some more Natasha Lyonne in your TV viewing life.

Russian Doll Watch on Netflix

More recommendations:

• These Are the Best Shows to Watch Based on Shows You Already Love
  
• The Best Time Travel Shows to Watch
• The Best Sci-Fi Shows to Watch on HBO Max, Amazon, Netflix, and More
  

Undone

How about a series about the bending of space and time centered on a sardonic, sometimes jaded, sharply funny woman with some parent issues? Sure, I could be talking about Russian Doll, but I'm also talking about the visually stunning, heartfelt Amazon Prime Video animated series Undone. Rosa Salazar stars as Alma, who gets into a car accident after believing she sees her father (Bob Odenkirk) who's been dead for 20 years. After she wakes up, she has the ability to move through time and space and ends up working with her dad to investigate his death. But to describe Undone this way is to do it zero justice. The rotoscope animation the show employs gives it an other-worldly, almost unsettling feel from the get-go and it is used to its fullest advantage. But Undone knows that pushing boundaries with both the visuals and narrative format aren't the only things needed to make a good show, and it spends just as much time and care with the family dynamics at Undone's center. [Trailer]

Orange Is the New Black

Natasha Lyonne should probably be in every show, right? If you feel that way and have yet to watch her as Nicky Nichols in Orange is the New Black, Netflix's series about inmates at a female minimum security prison, you should correct that mistake immediately. The good news is that Lyonne is just one of many great performances in a cast that includes Uzo Aduba, Kate Mulgrew, Danielle Brooks, Laverne Cox, Samira Wiley, and Taylor Schilling. Orange was one of Netflix's earliest original series and over seven seasons it not only shed light on corruption within the prison system, it delivered heartfelt, funny, and emotional stories about the women of Litchfield by both covering their time in prison and providing illuminating backstories. [Trailer]

Hindsight

Minor spoilers here, but Season 2 of Russian Doll takes us to NYC in the early 1980s. To see New York in another era, watch Hindsight, one of VH1's few scripted series. This canceled-too-soon dramedy follows Becca (Laura Ramsey), a woman who, the night before her second wedding, wishes she could've made some different choices in her life and wakes up in 1995, on the day of her first wedding. Central to the entire thing is a wonderful, complicated depiction of friendship thanks to Becca and her best friend Lolly (Sarah Goldberg), who are estranged in the present, but not back in the 90s. It's got a much more upbeat, rom-com feel to it instead of the gritty edge of Russian Doll, but it offers a fun time-travel romp nonetheless. [Trailer]

Fleabag

There's no time travel here, but we do have a cynical woman who deals with unresolved pain in less-than-healthy ways, and a show that also balances a harder-edge tone with laugh-out-loud comedy. Phoebe Waller-Bridge's perfect two-season dramedy Fleabag is about the titular Fleabag, a woman in London making bad decisions and refusing to deal with her grief. It's full of wonderfully drawn supporting characters (Sian Clifford, who plays Fleabag's sister Claire, does a line reading of "I look like a pencil" that will change your life), format-breaking risks, and surprisingly heartfelt — and heartbreaking — moments. It's only problem is that at just 12 episodes, it is much too short. [Trailer]

Loki

A time traveler who hates that the universe is messing with him — what a concept. Does it seem like Marvel's six-episode series about troublemaking god of mischief Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is lightyears away from what's going on in Russian Doll? At the surface level, sure, but Loki, like Nadia, is also forced to deal with deep-seated issues in order to properly deal with his new place in the space-time continuum. Here, Loki is plucked from his timeline and forced by a bureaucratic entity that exists outside of time and space called the Time Variance Authority to help them track down another version of himself. He (sort-of) teams up with TVA agent Mobius, played by a delightful Owen Wilson, and heads out on an adventure with some twists and turns that I won't spoil here. It's one of the best things to come out of the MCU, period.

Palm Springs

Word on the street is that everyone loves their rom-coms with a side of nihilism, and that's exactly what you get in this gem of a movie. Palm Springs follows Sarah (Cristin Milioti), a woman who has a penchant for making bad choices, as she begrudgingly attends her sister's (Camila Mendes) wedding only to end up trapped in a time loop. She soon discovers that another wedding guest, Nyles (Andy Samberg), has been trapped in the same loop for much longer (a sort of Alan to her Nadia, if you will) and a friendship sparks as they enjoy a life free of consequences. But that kind of meaningless life can grow tiresome and eventually Sarah seeks a way out. Palm Springs is a laugh-out-loud comedy with two very game leads that explores what is actually important in life in clever ways. Oh, and it features an unhinged, delightful J.K. Simmons. In short, it has everything you could want in a rom-com. [Trailer]

Dark

Anyone who considers themselves a fan of the time-travel genre has to give German Netflix series Dark a shot. Will it hurt your head? Yes. Will it be worth it? I mean, I think so. While Russian Doll feels hyper-specific to Nadia and New York City, Dark is a sprawling epic about four families in a small, fictional German town called Winden tied together throughout time (like so, so tied together it will melt your brain). You'll travel from present-day to the 1980s to the 1800s to well into a post-apocalyptic future and meet certain characters at various points throughout their lives as they, whether knowingly or not, participate in a twisty battle between good and evil. [Trailer]