Too Much

I didn't research any of the actors/producers/writers/creators before watching. Not too long into the first episode, I immediately clocked Lena Dunham's touch. If you've seen Dunham's "Girls" (HBO) you will get immediate Hannah energy from the main character. From what I've seen so far, a lot of the situations Jessica herself into are very similar to Hannah from Girls. BUT, it does not have quite the same wit and bite as the dialogue in Girls. Girls felt messier without TRYING to be. Jessica is just a tinge over the top to where it's borderline unbelievable that anyone is friends with her or wants to be with her. Lena's previous characters, like Hannah Horvath, were more fleshed out. They are trying TOO HARD to make Jessica a "mess".

There are some really beautiful scenes in the show, but there's also lot of other things that get in the way of the good parts. For example, there are way too many musical "filler" scenes, sex scenes, main character being intentionally awkward and whiny scenes. When she's not acting like a child, she's outstanding, but most of the time, she's a little annoying. Thankfully, the rest of the characters are interesting and give exactly what they are supposed to for their parts. Overall, I like the show, just wish it weren't so chaotic, but maybe that's the point of it all. Obviously she feels out of control of her life and everything that happens to her is a reflection of that.

So many wasted talents in this yawn of a comedy. Will Sharp is the reason for two of the three stars, hopefully this will lead to bigger and better things.

The ensemble characters are a bunch of stereotypes, choosen to complete a checklist of visibility.

The biggest problem is the total unlikeability of the main character. You really stop caring about her crash life in London very quickly. The "funny" social situations are so contrived they become just silly. The written tries too hard to cover issues, emotions etc.

A special mention for Jennifer Saunders playing an unfunny version of Abfab Eddie

It tries to too hard and fails dramatically, if you want to see a well written female lead comedy watch Fleabag (or even Miranda)

I can see the Netflix boardroom conversation now: "Hey, remember how well last year's series One Day did? People loved that cute guy from The White Lotus-Leo Woodall. Let's grab another cute guy from The White Lotus-Will Sharpe this time-pair him with a quirky but relatable girl, drop them in London, throw in some hipster melancholy and emotional turbulence, and voilà! We've got our next streaming hit."

That's more or less what Too Much feels like.

The ingredients are all there: an acclaimed indie darling (Lena Dunham), a cool urban setting, plenty of yearning, offbeat dialogue, and a cast that looks great in soft lighting. But while One Day built genuine emotional weight over time, Too Much often feels like it's trying to reverse-engineer the same success rather than create something fresh.

Will Sharpe does his best with what he's given-he has a quiet magnetism that keeps things watchable-but the writing never quite gives his character the space or depth he deserves. The same goes for the lead female role, which vacillates between charming and frustrating without ever landing with much emotional impact.

There are nice moments. A few scenes have a rawness that feels honest, and the London backdrop is used well. But overall, it's a show that feels like it was made by checking boxes. It's not terrible-but it's trying too hard to be something we've already seen.

I really wanted to love this. I loved Girls. I really felt Lena Dunham was the voice of a generation and I wanted this to be every bit as good. But it wasn't. In fact it was bad, REALLY BAD. Like student film or GCSE drama devised piece bad.

Firstly, Dunham can't write British dialogue at all, or British characters. All the British characters lacked well, character, and they also lacked nuance, originality and believability. They were all tired tropes. Some of their dialogue was just awful. Especially in the work scenes. Poor Richard E Grant did his best with terrible dialogue but he had nothing to work with. None of the work team characters came across like any real British person or spoke like any real British person. You could see they knew the show was going to flop.

Add to that the two leads were just unlikeable (and I've never disliked Will Sharpe in anything but this loser musician character is just plain unlikeable and you could see Sharpe's heart wasn't;t really in it) and the female lead character is both unlikeable and irritating in the extreme. It was hard to care about them, their romance or anything really. They also had zero chemistry which didn't help.

The show is also unbelievably slow and devoid of any plot. So no character, no plot, no originality and absolutely no Com in the Rom. I didn't laugh once. Didn't even crack a smile.

The whole thing felt off, like a mish mash of Baby Reindeer, Notting Hill and wanting to be but totally failing to be the brilliant Shrill. But Shrill had charm, nuance, actual comedy and pulled the heart strings. And a lead actress who was incredibly watchable. This does nothing. Didn't make me feel anything except infuriated about wasting my time watching it!

I'm sure off the back of the success of Girls Netflix just said off you go Lena, make whatever you want to make and never gave a single note. They must be regretting that now.

Netflix have had a string of British hits lately but this sadly is not one of them.