Time-travelling TV shows about young women going back to the past to fix intergenerational Jewish trauma are like buses, you wait for ages and… well, you know the rest.
Last week we had the second series of Russian Doll on Netflix; this week its competitor, Amazon Prime, launched the second series of Undone. When we last saw Alma in 2019, she was anxiously keeping vigil in the Mexican desert to see if efforts to fix the timeline would see her reunited with her supposedly dead father.
Or perhaps the entire story was really about her having brain damage after a car accident in the first episode, or possibly even suffering from a family trait of schizophrenia?
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A scene from Undone
Three years and a pandemic later, it only takes a few minutes of the first episode to finally get to the happy ending we’d wanted and been waiting for, leaving the writers in a bit of a pickle; what next? But with this show’s creators also responsible for the endlessly inventive BoJack Horseman, it’s not like they’re the types to get stuck for ideas.
And so almost immediately we’re off again, Alma pushing back into the timeline, now with her sister, to solve a mystery involving her Mexican mother, that leads to the door of her paternal Jewish grandmother, Geraldine, who was formerly known as Ruchel, before escaping Poland.
Narrative wise, this is very much my thing; time travel, Jews, a bit of humour.
Also check out the underrated Palm Springs from the same streaming platform. Yet I find it difficult to wholeheartedly recommend Undone, the principle problem being what I’m sure many others consider its greatest strength, rotoscoping.
This is the technique where original live action shots are traced over with animation, imbuing everything with a slightly dreamlike surreal quality. It certainly differentiates this series, providing it with a very unique look that arguably lends itself to the story by keeping the audience on uneven ground. It’s also a clever approach for transitioning between the present day real world and the family’s history, or suggesting the possibility that Alma’s losing her mind.
However, I still find the reality/animation hybrid somewhat off-putting. At least with real shots you’d be able to properly see what the actors are going through, grounding the more fantastical elements. Or if instead it was pure animation, that’d allow for imaginations to properly let go and the suspension of disbelief with it.
Straddling between the two, neither effect can fully occur, whilst also leaving me a bit queasy to boot.
Perhaps worst of all, the actor around whom the series is based, Rosa Salazar, overcompensates with body movement and facial expressions, to ensure they carry through the animation. Combined with some of the character’s baffling choices and selfishness, it only exacerbates them, making her frustrating to watch.
On the other hand, the normally excellent Bob Odenkirk makes no such concessions to the medium at all, and is left with all the stiffness of a South Park character. Perhaps I’m wrong and future me will come to regret this review, wanting to go back in time to change it. Probably not though.
