- Network: HBO , Sky Living , Sky Witness
- Series Premiere Date: Mar 19, 2014
Season #: 2, 1
Critic Reviews
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Doll & Em turns out to be unerringly fair-minded in its view of popular filmmaking, if only because concerns about Hollywood's shallowness are secondary to ideas of age and, inevitably, death.
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It's a very smart, insightful piece about the delicate balance of success and insecurity within a female friendship.
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It’s not always clear what either woman gains from the friendship, and while maintaining the imbalance of power would feed the show’s bleakly comic seam, the fourth episode’s final scene suggests an impending shift when both Em and Doll audition for the same role, creating new and welcome tensions going forward.
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Think of Doll & Em as a collection of short stories rather than half-hour comedies and it’s quite absorbing.
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The writing is sharp and believable, the chemistry between the two best friends obviously an advantage and the star cameos well-deployed.
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The two-part debut starts off anemic, but serves up redemptive meat (soy protein?) when they hit up a Hollywood bigwig's celeb-filled party. [21 Mar 2014, p.58]
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This partly improvised comedy is closer to Girls than All About Eve: wistful yet stinging, silly yet wise about the instability of even the deepest friendships. [24 Mar 2014, p.37]
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It's at its best--if not necessarily its funniest--when Em and Doll are struggling to find a balance between their childhood selves and the more demanding adults they've become.
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It's hardly required viewing, but it's enjoyable, light fun.
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It is a very reliable deliverer of certain genre pleasures.
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An awkwardly funny and occasionally heartbreaking attempt to peel back the many meanings and layers of friendship.
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The story is framed by the outsize absurdities of show business, but Doll & Em is a character study in miniature.
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Mortimer and Wells are both fine, juggling dramatic moments with more farcical ones, but this is still a fairly slight project even by HBO’s less-exacting standards.
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Despite some funny and even pungent moments, in fact, Doll & Em is so gentle that you can barely feel anything.
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It’s painfully funny at times, and occasionally poignant. In between those peaks, however, it’s needlingly formless.
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Despite its refreshing commitment to realism, Doll & Em is ultimately too relaxed and meandering for its own good. There are times when you may wish it had embraced the occasional cliches with more gusto.
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There are definite laughs and tears to be wrung from Doll & Em, but the actresses’ own inherent likability and warmth toward each other, oddly enough work against the premise.
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Every beat of that material is predictable and clumsy and unfunny.
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Much of the comedy comes out of that type of awkwardness but Doll & Em is less a comedy-of-the-uncomfortable series (a la a female "Curb Your Enthusiasm") and more just kind of slow and boring.
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While sporadically and quietly amusing, the entire enterprise has the whiff of an in-joke vanity production.
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There’s some enjoyment to be had from the lead performances of real-life best friends Emily Mortimer (The Newsroom) and Dolly Wells (Bridget Jones’s Diary). A brisk walk would be better for you, though.
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It has some promise at first but quickly becomes predictable.
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The latest British girlfriends comedy is anything but absolutely fabulous. Sadly, it’s a bit tedious.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 6 out of 14
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Mixed: 3 out of 14
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Negative: 5 out of 14
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Apr 28, 2014This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.
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Jun 18, 2015