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".

The main character jokes around and makes looks so much that it's not even believable as a real person. Even when she's supposed to be heartbroken it is a farce. Cringy. I'd like some character with substance. No one in the world acts the way these characters do but the main character more so than others. No substance at all just one "joke" after the other.

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.

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.

After watching the entire series, I realized it felt like a social commentary on our individualistic and narcissistic culture. It made me sad, and I think it was supposed to make me laugh. It felt like everybody was so egotistical in this series there was not one redeeming character, including the protagonist. I wanted to like her a little more, but I just couldn't. She just kept sabotaging herself. Also, this series felt like it lacked a really good, strong plot sometimes it felt quite boring and like they were stretching the series for more episodes. I gave it a higher score because I loved all of the actors performances. It was nice to see Lena again, and I know she created this. I would say this had a beautiful moments and very disturbing moments, but I'm not going to be recommending it overall.