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Appointment Viewing: The shows you’ll always want to pencil in on your calendar and unpack in your group chat.
Scrolling through 12 streaming platforms but still can’t find something to watch? You’re not alone. Our television columnist Michel Ghanem, a.k.a. @tvscholar, watches over 160 seasons of television each year, and he is here for you. Perhaps you’re in the mood for a hidden gem sitting undiscovered on a streamer or a show with mysteries so tantalizing we can’t stop thinking about it. It’s all about carving out time for the shows that are actually worth your time, or “appointment viewing.” Fire up that group chat because we’ve got some unpacking to do.
So far this year, we’ve cried to FX’s Dying for Sex, cried laughing to Hulu’s Big Boys, and rooted for a bunch of unsung queer shows. This month, we are enthusiastic about Lena Dunham’s return to television via her new Netflix romantic comedy, Too Much, co-created with her husband, Luis Felber, and starring Megan Stalter and Will Sharpe as chaotic 30-somethings who meet in London at a pivotal point in their lives.
Why should I put Too Much at the top of my list?
This is the Lena Dunham return to television we have all been waiting for. Those who cherished Girls back in the 2010s will be happy to know Too Much surpassed my expectation. Dunham, along with a few co-writers, wrote each semi-autobiographical episode of this new Netflix rom-com series. If you scoffed at Emily in Paris’s fairy-tale depiction of Paris and the silliness of its premise, Too Much will give you something more nuanced but with vaguely the same fish-out-of-water plot (there’s no love triangle here though, thankfully).
Too Much follows Jessica (Megan Stalter), a commercial producer struggling to move on from a messy breakup in New York, when she’s offered the opportunity to relocate with her dog, Astrid, to London for a fresh start. On her first night in the city, Jessica meets Felix (Will Sharpe), a sober musician processing his own issues. Their relationship forms the beating heart of the show. Too Much is a potent character study of the trauma nestled at the root of attachment styles and the potential of relational healing, and it’s delightfully messy.
How can I watch it?
All ten, half-hour episodes premiere on Netflix on July 10. I recommend bingeing through the first half of the season, then watching the second half more slowly, which tells a thornier and more complicated story.
How similar is it to Girls?
Back when Girls was airing weekly, it felt like think pieces would go viral after every episode (as a society, we clearly needed to process everything from ass eating to representational issues on the show). Few things were as polarizing as Hannah and Adam’s toxic relationship, though, which formed the knotty center of Girls for many seasons. Too Much’s central entanglement feels like a healthier reimagining of that dynamic in some ways. Jessica has moved to London to escape the fallout from breaking up with her ex-boyfriend Zev (Michael Zegen), and her only coping mechanism is recording stream-of-consciousness rants addressed directly to his new Insta-perfect girlfriend Wendy (Emily Ratajkowski) and posting them on her finsta.
When Jessica begins dating Felix, she is still raw from the tumultuous days of her previous relationship. Felix brings his own baggage to their coupledom, from juggling multiple exes (Adèle Exarchopoulos plays one of them) to his struggles with addiction. Too Much sketches out a multi-dimensional character study for both sides of the relationship.
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I recently explored my own anxious attachment style in therapy, how in my head and activated I can be in the early phases of dating — and although my therapist had some practical grounded advice for how to navigate that in the moment, she also reminded me of “relational healing,” the idea that wounds and trauma can’t always be healed in solitude. I thought a lot about attachment styles while watching Jessica and Felix together in Too Much — Felix’s nonchalant, non-judgmental disposition creating space for Jessica’s buzzing for validation and desire to be seen by a partner and the push and pull between anxiety and avoidance.
Anchored by some of the best comedy performances of the year, Stalter and Sharpe add layers to their fights and conversations with left-field dialogue so far from clichéd that you can’t predict what Jessica might say next. I hate to admit it, but these days I sometimes succumb to second-screen viewing (scrolling through social media while housewives argue on my television). It not only feels, but is confirmed, that streamers like Netflix look to make television that caters to casual viewers. I relished the experience of being completely locked in to Too Much, even (or especially) during episodes with the simplest setups, like when Jessica and Felix stay up all night talking and having sex instead of sleeping, despite Jessica receiving warnings at work that she’s unfocused during the day. These episodes let viewers be a fly on the wall as the couple explore new depths of their intimacy and embark on their own kind of relational healing.
So is this or is this not considered a rom-com? I’ve already been burned by Materialists …
I would consider this a rom-com with a very rom-com-appropriate ending, so yes! But perhaps more in the style of Rose Matafeo’s underrated series Starstruck than something like Erin Foster’s Nobody Wants This, and much more grown up than Mara Brock Akil’s Forever. There is a soft cynicism to Too Much that feels grounded in reality, but it doesn’t take that too far to be straight up depressing. Episode titles are wordplay on iconic rom-coms: “Notting Kill,” “Enough, Actually,” you get the idea. Jessica is also thrilled to imagine her life as a rom-com, picturing Felix as her Mr. Darcy early on in the season.
On another hand, the eye-popping guest stars — seemingly every cool British actor currently working — is what brings the show out of the honeymoon phase and into a bustling London scene that leans satirical, with various self-contained (not quite bottle) episodes that continuously remind me how Girls was ahead of its time. Too Much has a rich tapestry of supporting characters, like at Jessica’s quirky workplace: Richard E. Grant plays her aloof London boss, and Janicza Bravo plays a co-worker on her own sexuality journey. There’s also the delight of seeing Dunham herself back in an acting role as Jessica’s sister in New York, living out of her mother’s (Rita Wilson) home and crying to Taylor Swift during a separation from her husband (played by Andrew Rannells in a cute nod to Girls fans who remember him as Hannah Horvath’s ex-turned-frenemy, Elijah). Add in a killer soundtrack, plus Stalter’s glorious leap out of the funny-side-character archetype, and I’d say Too Much is the breakout show of the summer. Or at least my breakout show of my summer.
