The second season of oddball comedy-drama Russian Doll begins on Netflix April 20. Natasha Lyonne, Leslye Headland and Amy Poehler created the show, which premiered in 2019. 

Lyonne plays Nadia, who dies at her birthday party and relives the night she died over and over and over. 

Charlie Barnett, Greta Lee and Yul Vazquez are also in the cast. 

Netflix announced the premiere date with a trailer on YouTube.

Lyonne was nominated for a best actress in a comedy Golden Globe in 2019. The show was up for a best comedy Emmy that same year. 

Universal Television, Poehler's Paper Kite Productions, JAX Media and 3 Arts Entertainment produce Russian Doll.

All episodes are directed by Jamie Babbit, Headland and Lyonne.

Russian Doll is often compared to Groundhog Day. When the second season was announced in 2019, Lyonne said, “Same show, just weirder.” ■

Mirroring cable years earlier, where the TV shows considered “cool” and “trendy” were housed on cable, the digital streamers have become a haven for the crème of the crop, so to speak. As with cable (excluding exceptions like Game of Thrones, American Horror Story, The Sopranos and Sex and the City), original streamed content does not necessarily attract a wide audience. But when you think of the top TV shows today, quality matters, not audience size. And the quality content, those “cool” and “trendy” shows being streamed, include dramedy The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Fleabag on Amazon Prime; Stranger Things, Russian Doll and GLOW on Netflix; and The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu.

The first streamed shows that demonstrated why subscription-based streaming was a force to reckon with, both in 2013, were political drama House of Cards and prison dramedy Orange Is the New Black. House of Cards drew immediate attention for signing then A-list actor Kevin Spacey in the lead role, which opened the floodgates to other big names jumping on the digital bandwagon. And Orange Is the New Black, set at a minimum-security federal prison, demonstrated why digital could take creative risks and dare to be different. There were fewer restrictions.

Then there is the example of an acclaimed entry like Netflix comedy The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which was originally planned for NBC but shifted to the streamer after it got a better offer.

While the assumption is an outlet like Netflix might attract fewer proverbial eyeballs than a broadcast network (there are no audience metrics available to support any of the current streamers, after all), the two immediate advantages of streaming are the potential critical acclaim and the unrestricted storytelling. With accolades comes attention, at least via the critics who write about original content and the viewers who are commenting on social media. And that begs the question…just how do these shows on the digital streamers break out of the pack in an era flooded with original content? 

“The obvious answer is concept and execution of each individual series,” said Robert Russo, president of consulting firm RNR Media. “Original content on the streamers also produce far fewer episodes per season than broadcast and can run at any length per episode, which is more conducive to quality and creativity. Casting big names can make all the difference.”

Recently launched Apple TV+ created early buzz for new drama The Morning Show from the casting of Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carell and Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon. 

“It’s finding great ideas, great content; things that will ignite us and make us want to watch it; make us want to talk about it; and make us want to be those people and be in those situations,” said Mike Tankel, partner/optimist at marketing and development firm To Be Continued.  “But too many people rush to production and without adequately thinking about how to get the audience talking about it. What do we need to do to stand out? How do we market and brand it?” 

Tankel cites a recent event for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in Los Angeles where chosen restaurants were offered deli sandwiches at prices comparable to the 1950s-set series. “It was brilliant from a marketing strategy and the whole town was talking about it,” said Tankel. “I am sure that brought more people to check out the show.”

“A good writer knows how to find characters within the show that are not necessarily the talent,” he added. “So, the deli setting on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, where they have their little sessions and see all the agents, has basically became a character on the series.”

Amazon Prime, meanwhile, recently offered a private screening of the third season premiere of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, followed by a Q&A with series stars Rachel Brosnahan and Tony Shalhoub in New York City. And two recent live events capitalized on the growing ComicCon brand: BravoCon, which showcased the network’s top series in New York City; and SopranoCon in New Jersey, which was tailed to beloved HBO drama The Sopranos.

“What we try to do is take marketing and move it into the development phase so that you think about the audience, you think about the characters, you think about the places,” said Tankel. “The coffee shop on Friends is a character; the deli on Mrs. Maisel is a character. And giving these audiences these live experiences is an added incentive.”

The critics, of course, remain vital to getting a TV series noticed.

“With all this content out there, I would change the term critic to navigator,” said Tankel. “We don’t have a way of looking and seeing everything that is available without these navigators. We need someone to shed some light and say ‘check this out.’ It’s the take on the story, who it impacts, and how it makes us feel.”

“Then, of course, there is social media,” added Russo, ”which can give anyone a voice."

HBO drew the most 2019 TCA Award nominations while FX’s Pose and Netflix’s Russian Doll topped nominations for individual shows, according to the Television Critics Association.

HBO picked up 15 nominations to lead all cable, broadcast and streaming services, with Netflix following close behind with 14, according to the TCA. FX finished third with eight nods, with Amazon, CBS, PBS, NBC, Showtime, BBC America and Pop TV all garnering multiple nominations.

Dramas Russian Doll and Pose (pictured) each drew four TCA Awards nominations, according to the organization.

The 35th annual TCA Awards will be held Aug. 3 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

The full list of TCA nominations is as follows:

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA

Amy Adams, "Sharp Objects" - HBO

Patricia Arquette, "Escape at Dannemora" - Showtime

Christine Baranski, "The Good Fight" - CBS All Access

Jodie Comer, "Killing Eve" - BBC America

Billy Porter, "Pose" - FX

Michelle Williams, "Fosse/Verdon" - FX

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY

Pamela Adlon, "Better Things" - FX

Bill Hader, "Barry" - HBO

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, "Veep" - HBO (2014 Winner in Category)

Natasha Lyonne, "Russian Doll" - Netflix

Catherine O'Hara, "Schitt's Creek" - Pop TV

Phoebe Waller-Bridge, "Fleabag" - Amazon

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN NEWS AND INFORMATION

"60 Minutes" - CBS 

"America To Me" - Starz

"Leaving Neverland" - HBO

"Our Planet" - Netflix

"The Rachel Maddow Show" - MSNBC

"Surviving R. Kelly" - Lifetime

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN REALITY

"The Great British Baking Show" - PBS

"Making It" - NBC

"Nailed It!" - Netflix

"Queer Eye" - Netflix

"Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" - Netflix

"Tidying Up with Marie Kondo" - Netflix

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN YOUTH PROGRAMMING

"Arthur" - PBS Kids

"Carmen Sandiego" - Netflix

"Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" - PBS Kids (2016 Winner in Category)

"Muppet Babies" - Disney Junior

"Odd Squad" - PBS Kids

"Sesame Street" - HBO (2018, 2011, 2001 Winner in Category)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN SKETCH/VARIETY SHOWS

"Desus & Mero" - Showtime

"Full Frontal with Samantha Bee" -TBS

"I Think You Should Leave" - Netflix

"Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" - HBO (2018 Winner in Category)

"Late Night with Seth Meyers" - NBC

"The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" - CBS

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN MOVIE OR MINISERIES

"Chernobyl" - HBO

"Deadwood: The Movie" - HBO

"Escape at Dannemora" - Showtime

"Fosse/Verdon" - FX

"Sharp Objects" - HBO

"When They See Us" - Netflix

OUTSTANDING NEW PROGRAM

"Dead to Me" - Netflix

"The Other Two" - Comedy Central

"Pose" - FX

"Russian Doll" - Netflix

"Succession" - HBO

"What We Do in the Shadows" - FX

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA

"Better Call Saul" - AMC

"The Good Fight" - CBS All Access

"Homecoming" - Amazon

"Killing Eve" - BBC America

"Pose" - FX

"Succession" - HBO

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY

"Barry" - HBO

"Fleabag" - Amazon

"The Good Place" - NBC (2018 Winner in Category)

"The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" - Amazon

"Russian Doll" - Netflix

"Schitt's Creek" - Pop TV

"Veep" - HBO 

PROGRAM OF THE YEAR

"Chernobyl" - HBO

"Fleabag" - Amazon

"Game of Thrones" - HBO 

"Pose" - FX

"Russian Doll" - Netflix

"When They See Us" - Netflix

Plenty of stuff does not work on television. Ratings on broadcast and cable are free-falling, and the streaming folks don’t say boo about how many are watching their programs. Weakly-watched shows don’t get canceled a few weeks after premiering the way they used to, but plenty instead drift into greater obscurity week after week.

Yet amidst all the sinking ratings, some stuff flies. For every big batch of shows that doesn’t make an impact with viewers, one breaks out.

As the year approaches its midpoint, here are five shows that did indeed bust out in the first half of 2019, and made their mark in popular culture. They include a broadcast rookie, a cable sophomore, a streaming show and a couple of other broadcast series that display no signs of slowing, despite dating back to the era before the streaming standouts launched.

We look at how, and why, these shows popped, and what we might learn from their success.

‘The Masked Singer’: Unlike Anything Else on TV

The Masked Singer opened with a bang on Fox in early January, posting a noisy 4.2 in viewers 18-49 in Nielsen’s live-plus-seven ratings, and proclaiming that the zany competition series was to be reckoned with. Based on a South Korean format, the show has celebs in elaborate costumes facing off in a singing competition. Nick Cannon hosts, and the judging panel is comprised of Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy, Nicole Scherzinger and Robin Thicke. One lesser singer is voted out at the end of the episode, and reveals their identity as the audience chants “Take it off!”

High art? Hardly. Did audiences gobble it up? Wholeheartedly.

“The Masked Singer was so visually arresting with those ridiculous costumes, and the guessing game concept — who is that singing? — was intriguing enough that it managed to cut through the clutter and get viewers’ attention,” said Rob Owen, TV critic at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The contestants, including Tommy Chong, Terry Bradshaw, Tori Spelling, Ricki Lake, Joey Fatone and Margaret Cho, weren’t exactly A-listers. As the finale wound down, rapper T-Pain beat out Gladys Knight and Donny Osmond for the crown.

Fully 14.2 million watched.

There are oodles of singing competitions, but The Masked Singer is different, thanks to the hidden identities and the costumes. “It was crazy from the beginning,” Roger Catlin, veteran TV critic, said. “Just the insanity of it … It was so different from anything else.”

The Masked Singer played perfectly into social media, with viewers sharing who they thought it might be under the mask.

Ken Jeong said The Masked Singer would tug at viewers’ heartstrings. “Everyone wants an emotional journey when they watch a show,” he said before the premiere. “This show definitely provides that.”

Masked Singer averaged a 3.8 rating (live-plus-seven) and 11.6 million total viewers for its rookie season (15.7 million multiplatform viewers). Time will tell if its novelty wears off, but Fox is all in on The Masked Singer. Its upfront presentation had Joe Namath singing in a deer mask. Season two starts in September, and season three leads out of the Super Bowl.

‘Russian Doll’: A Quirky Show’s Fatal Attraction

Russian Doll launched on Netflix a day before Groundhog Day, without a whole lot of buzz. But the comedy-drama, whose executive producers include Amy Poehler, Leslye Headland and Natasha Lyonne, promptly scooped up raves by the truckload.

Starring Lyonne as Nadia, a woman who dies at her birthday party and keeps coming back to life at the party, in the bathroom, moments before her demise, Russian Doll garnered a million comparisons to the 1993 Bill Murray film Groundhog Day, but took the concept much further than the movie did. All the while, it deftly danced between tragic and funny, delivering both slapstick and hints of sci-fi.

“Once you get into it, it talks about different things,” Myles McNutt, Old Dominion University assistant professor of communication, said. “It doesn’t feel like a pure homage.”

Critics praised Lyonne and the show.

“Much of the fun of the series is in its surprises,” wrote Rolling Stone critic Alan Sepinwall, “not just the many ways in which Nadia winds up dying, but the things she’s forced to confront about herself and all the friends and loved ones she’s tried to hold at arm’s length through three-and-a-half very messy decades on this planet.”

Critics saluted its creativity. Rotten Tomatoes’ critical Tomatometer has Russian Doll at an impressive 96%.

“Like its peers, Russian Doll resolves on the necessity of human connection, a familiar homily, but it’s too inventive and irascible to feel pat,” wrote James Poniewozik of The New York Times. “This is a show with a big heart, but a nicotine-stained heart that’s been dropped in the gutter and kicked around a few times.

“Russian Doll is lean and snappily paced,” he continued. “It even managed the rare feat, in the era of streaming-TV bloat, of making me wish for a bit more.”

McNutt noted the series’ philosophical leanings. “It felt very distinct and very special the more you dug in,” he said.

‘Grey’s Anatomy’: ‘Old Gray Lady’ Still Has Spring in Her Step

Reaching a 15th season itself is an accomplishment, but doing real ratings in season 15 is a rare occurrence.

Grey’s Anatomy got it done.

The hospital drama averaged just shy of 10 million total viewers this season, and did well in the key demos as well. ABC is happy to note that Grey’s finished the season behind This Is Us, and This Is Us alone, among dramas in adults 18-34 and 18-49, and the three women’s demographics (18-34, 18-49, 25-54) this season.

McNutt noted the peculiar feeling of seeing Grey’s as “the old gray lady” of ABC’s Shondaland-heavy TGIT slate years ago, and viewing it as the Thursday anchor eons later. “It seems to have revitalized itself, and it still feels like a vital part of the ABC lineup,” McNutt added.

Netflix has turned on a new generation to the show. A full 14 seasons are available for streaming (season 15 arrives June 15), starting with the “A Hard Day’s Night” pilot from 2005. (Meredith finds out Derek is her new boss in that episode.) Millennials like the idea of having a large stash of seasons to digest. “Volume matters,” McNutt said. “It provides you with something you can watch for weeks, and months.”

Creator Shonda Rhimes moved on to Netflix two years ago, but still executive produces Grey’s. Krista Vernoff runs the show next season, and Ellen Pompeo once again suits up as Dr. Meredith Grey.

ABC has committed to season 17, too. At the Disney upfront show in May, Karey Burke, ABC Entertainment president, teased weekly crossovers between Grey’s and spinoff Station 19.

‘Meet the Press’: Extending Brand Beyond Politics

A monumental presidential election goes down in less than a year and a half, and there is no more essential TV figure breaking down politics than NBC News political director Chuck Todd. Meet the Press, which he moderates, is on fire, winning 66 consecutive Sunday broadcasts in viewers 25-54 and averaging 870,000 in that demo, along with 3.48 million total viewers season to date. (CBS’s Face the Nation is next at 718,000 and 3.25 million.)

Todd extends the brand with MTP Daily on MSNBC, airing 5 p.m. weekdays, and the Chuck ToddCast, a podcast which debuted in April.

News analyst Andrew Tyndall credited Todd with getting Meet the Press back to its lofty perch of the Tim Russert era. “He has a feel for what the sweet spot is for that program,” Tyndall said.

A testament to Todd’s straightforward focus is that he can get key Republicans to come on Meet the Press. This year, that includes President Donald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders and chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and Sen. Ted Cruz. The thinking among them is, if they can hold their own against Todd, they can handle any public-affairs forum out there.

“Ambitious politicians want to go on,” Tyndall said.

Before joining NBC News, Todd was editor in chief at the National Journal’s Washington daily The Hotline. Rival anchors turned to politics after covering general news. Todd turned to TV after a long stint being neck deep in politics.

It hasn’t all been politics. On Dec. 30, Todd did a well-received hourlong climate change special on Meet the Press.

So robust is the brand that the third annual Meet the Press Film Festival goes down in Washington Oct. 6-7. It will feature issues-based documentary shorts and live discussions.

Extending Meet the Press to a daily cable show is a no brainer, but a branded film fest is unique. “Making a film festival out of a Sunday-morning show — that’s really clever,” said Tyndall.

‘Killing Eve’: Stellar Sophomore

Killing Eve had enormous buzz coming out of its rookie season on BBC America, and has been able to parlay that into greater ratings and considerable critical acclaim in season two, a rare occurrence in the TV world.

In live-plus-three ratings, season two averaged 1.7 million viewers per episode, up a stunning 88% from season one. In adults 25-54, it averaged 675,000, an 80% gain.

Linda Ong, chief culture officer at Civic Entertainment Group, said Killing Eve hit popular culture at precisely the right time. “There’s so much that’s culturally relevant about the show,” she said.

Spy thrillers are always centered on male characters, but Eve has two compelling females in the lead. MI6 agent Eve Polastri is portrayed by a multicultural actress in Sandra Oh, who won a Golden Globe for best actress in a drama, and co-hosted the event to boot. The story line dances around the globe with a colorful cast of international characters. “It plays on an amazing global stage,” Ong said.

Helping goose the Nielsens was a decision by AMC Networks to air season two on both BBC America and AMC. “We believe we’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg in terms of potential viewers and we want to expose this brilliant series to the largest audience we can,” Sarah Barnett, president, entertainment networks for AMC Networks, said at the time.

Season two began April 7. A day later, AMC Networks announced it had ordered a third season. “We can sleep soundly knowing these characters are safe in [incoming writer/executive producer] Suzanne Heathcote’s hilariously murderous hands,” executive producer Phoebe Waller-Bridge said. Yes, the same Phoebe Waller-Bridge who created and starred in Amazon Prime Video hit Fleabag.

Ong called Killing Eve “flawlessly executed” and “stylish,” and possessing loads of “global appeal.”

MCN's Kent Gibbons and Mike Malone discuss what went on at TCA, the future of live musicals on broadcast, why Russian Doll and The Masked Singer are working, and how they could be better.