Russian Doll made my list of premieres to try, and all I really knew about it was about a day being repeated. Based on that premise, it’s almost a lock to be cancelled. Almost every show that has tried it has made it less than one season, even if they went with death, or a repeat of the day for other reasons.

For this one, the character is named Nadia and it’s her 36th birthday. Nadia is a software engineer, single, and way beyond cynical. A 2-pack a day smoker, her biggest contribution to the day is sleeping with a married-but-separated yuppie type, if deep-minded Yuppies were still a thing. Mainly she’s just missing her cat. Fast-forward through her short night, nothing amazing happening other than getting laid, and then she is out on the street. She sees her missing cat across the road, runs to get her, and a cab mows her down. Yep, she’s dead. Except she’s not because it resets back to her being in the bathroom at the party earlier in the night. She doesn’t remember everything, but she has a profound sense of deja vu for some of the night. She makes different choices, ends up almost getting creamed by the same taxi (her ex saves her) and she finds her cat. At the end of the night, the cat vanishes in her arms, she falls in the river and drowns, and wakes up again in the bathroom, this time spitting out the water from the river.

There should be no chance this gets renewed, yet according to the ‘net, it is. How can you make this work past a single season, or even a single couple of episodes? I love these shows, and they are almost impossible to get right for the masses. I love when Star Trek does it, Stargate did an amazing version, Groundhog Day was fun if we could just get rid of Andie McDowell (how does he never try killing her?), Taye Diggs had some game going on in Day Break trying to solve his own frame up. But they don’t last. Loops are fun until you break them, but you have to have a goal that explains either the loop or the ending. And hopefully there’s something about the character that is interesting to watch. I’m not sure Nadia is it. Not that it matters, the premise of time loops is compelling for me and I’ll watch a train wreck if it attempts it.

Nadia is played by Nathasha Lyonne and I’m not thrilled for the first half of EP1. It seems like she’s trying to do a stand-up routine for half the interactions she has. Trying out lines that go nowhere, riffing off other people trying to be funny, but not really succeeding. More neurotic than anything. I haven’t seen her in Orange is the New Black or Portlandia, but she’s not a huge draw for me. After her death and rebirth, she’s a little less annoying in the second half.

For the rest of the characters. nobody stands out. She has two good friends in the apartment, nothing special to add. In the first half of the episode, the guy she f***s seems okay; her ex in the second half is a bit of a d-bag. And I have no idea what’s going on with her recognizing a random homeless guy.

The show’s a bit weird, but I’ll watch it to see where it leads, if anywhere. And if I hadn’t cheated and seen that it was renewed, I’d be predicting cancellation.

I didn’t know much about the show Ramy other than it was about a Muslim named Ramy trying to figure out his life, and the lead was stand-up comedian Ramy Youssef. It wasn’t clear if it was a slice of life, a light Everybody Hates Ramy, or a laugh-out loud the whole world is nuts Seinfeld-esque show. I’ve now watched the first episode and I still don’t know.

There are a string of scenes thrown together, and I suppose some of them are mildly amusing. The show basically shows him going to a Muslim wedding of his friend at the mosque, and everybody giving him a hard time that he’s single…his mother, his friends, strangers he doesn’t even know. And so he needs to figure his life out and maybe date a Muslim woman for a change. After he goes through a Muslim Tindr profile, and asks around, he ends up on a date with a woman where it goes REALLY well. Right up until the sex where she wants to be choked (she tells him to grab tighter, it’s not a massage). Each of the scenes look and feel like one-offs, there’s almost no flow between them.

And I didn’t get a feel for much of any of the characters — his friends, his coworkers, his family — other than very short snippets in the half-hour. Ultimately, none of it was very funny, although I did smile a couple of times. It seemed more like Coming to America than it did a Muslim man living in Jersey. The only parts that really sang was when he was riffing like he was doing stand-up (which didn’t fit the scene, but at least it was amusing).

Overall? I don’t care if he finds love. Nor enough to even try and rate the rest of the actors. I definitely am predicting CANCELLATION.

Wow. I’ve been going through a whole bunch of premieres of various shows, and for a lot of them, my initial reaction is often that it is a quirky premise, not much plot, and nowhere to go. I just watched The Order (Netflix) and it has plot, room to grow, and a whole of mystery out the wazoo. Holy cow, it’s awesome.

So here’s the basic premise. A secret society known as the Hermetic Order of the Blue Rose selects 7 pledges each year from a private university, of which 3 are then invited / selected / winners of entry. The other 4 forget all about it. And success in the contest / selection process leads to power to unlock your potential. With a key element being magic.

Jack Morton is a young man, ready for college, and hoping to go to the special college and join the Order so he can help his grandfather solve the murder of his daughter (Jack’s mom) at what was believed to be the hands of the father, a member of the Blue Rose. The nature of her death and the mystery isn’t exactly clear, but it seems like the gist. Grandpa is a bit obsessed to be honest, and Jack is heavily focused on figuring it all out. But first he must make it into the Order. In Ep1, he arrives on campus, gets selected, gets some hints, makes it to the finals, and then, just for fun, gets attacked by a werewolf. Yes, a werewolf. Which has been killing other pledges (with 2 dead already).

Jack is played by Jake Manley, and I vaguely remember him from Heroes Reborn. Here he is great. Very serious, very friendly, a fantastic lead to keep the mystery alive and grounded in a motivated fish out of water take on the new happenings. Meanwhile, an upper year member, Alyssa Drake has taken a returned-interest in him, and she is played by Sarah Grey. I’ve seen her in small roles on Lucifer and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, but didn’t recognizer her here. She’s pretty great, has the girl-next-door thing going on that is the classic look and love interest of every show ever written about guys in college, and she’s pretty dang good. I’m amazed at how comfortable the two of them seem together. Like best friends, not work-buddies on a new show. There isn’t much sexual chemistry yet, it’s early days, but they sparkle together.

Grandpa is played by Matt Frewer, and whether he was Max Headroom or running a #CloneClub, Frewer does an amazing job on simple emotions or seeming like a grade A whackadoodle. Awesome here for both. Love his character, even if the first EP doesn’t really give you full insights into him or where he fits in.

Some other members of the cast include Sam Trammell (True Blood) as an ethics professor, Katherine Isabelle (Being Human) as the Chancellor and local head of the Blue Order for students, Jedidiah Goodacre (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) as a jerky head of initiation, and Hiro Kanagawa (Altered Carbon) as the police detective trying to figure out who’s killing college kids. All four are relatively solid.

And did I mention plot out the wazoo? There is so much room for this show to go, and the lead actors were good, so I have to predict RENEWAL.