Heavily Hyped Netflix Sci-Fi Series Headed For Cancellation
Is quiet canceling the new quiet quitting? It sure seems like that’s the case over at Netflix. The streaming giant has yet to make a concrete announcement about the future of fan-favorite surrealist sci-fi comedy Russian Doll, leading some to believe it’s been silently axed.
Russian Doll Surprisingly Came Back With A Second Season In 2022
The first season of Russian Doll hit Netflix in 2019 and featured a time loop plot where Natasha Lyonne was forced to keep repeating the same day over and over. The first season felt pretty self-contained, so it came as a pleasant surprise when season 2 showed up three years later in 2022.
While Russian Doll season 2 didn’t generate quite the same buzz as the first season, it was still well-received for Lyonne’s performance and its increasingly weird premise. It’s been almost two years since season 2, however, and in that time, Netflix has failed to address the future of the series publically.
Considering the three years between seasons 1 and 2, one could always just assume that the producers are taking another lengthy hiatus between seasons, except this time, things feel…off.
Netflix Stays Quiet
For one thing, the gap between the production of Russian Doll season 1 and Russian Doll season 2 was largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Netflix faces no such barrier this time meaning that they could begin production on season 3 whenever they want to. The question is, do they want to?
When Netflix is committed to a project, they have no problem announcing another season years ahead of time. Take the popular superhero series The Umbrella Academy. Netflix made it known back in 2022 that the series would be returning for one more season sometime in 2024. Wednesday premiered on Netflix in November of 2022 and was renewed for a second season just a couple of months later, in January 2023.
It’s hard not to think that if Netflix intended to continue Russian Doll, it would have said something by now. Of course, there’s always the chance that it isn’t Netflix that’s holding season 3 back.
Would Natasha Lyonne Even Want To Return For Season 3?
It’s no secret that Natasha Lyonne has been having something of a renaissance lately. The acerbic, smoky-voiced actress has starred in not just one but two hit streaming shows in the last five years. Besides Netflix’s Russian Doll, the 44-year-old New Yorker has also lent her considerable talents to Peacock’s spiritual successor to Columbo, Poker Face.
Lyonne Has A Stacked Schedule
Lyonne is hard at work directing her first movie as well. With such a full plate, some projects have to be put on the back burner, and in this case, it looks like Russian Doll is one of those projects. Natasha has publicly stated that her other work takes priority over Russian Doll at the moment making the series’s future seem that much bleaker.
Is There Any Hope For Russian Doll?
Russian Doll fans shouldn’t lose all hope, though. For one thing, Natasha Lyonne has never stated definitively that she was done with the series. In fact, she’s been quoted as saying the opposite. “Russian Doll is something that I’ll never be done with,” Lyonne has stated. The actress also used Jurassic Park as a way to describe the future of Russian Doll, repurposing Jeff Goldblum’s meme-tastic quote, “Life finds a way.”Of course, in classic Natasha Lyonne fashion, she followed it up with the snarky, “And so does death, my friend.” Let’s hope that when it comes to Russian Doll, Netflix focuses on the life part.
