'Too Much' review: If you can't get too much Megan Stalter, you'll love it

WHAT IT'S ABOUT In her early 30s, struggling at work as a director, and recently dumped by her boyfriend, Jessica Salmon (Megan Stalter, "Hacks") is ready for a change, and gets one when she's shipped to the London branch of her ad agency. On her first night in London, she meets indie rock musician Felix Remen (Will Sharpe, "The White Lotus"). This Lena Dunham 10-parter is loosely drawn from her own life with husband-musician Luis Felber.

There are lots of cameos here — Rita Ora, Naomi Watts, Jessica Alba, Rhea Perlman, Stephen Fry, Rita Wilson, Dunham — but a special award to anyone who spots Kit Harington ("Game of Thrones").

MY SAY "Too Much" is a lot of "Bridget Jones's Diary," a little bit of "Ted Lasso," a bit more of "Girls," and also that new FX comedy "Adults," and if you want to throw "Fleabag" into this mix, I wouldn't mind, nor would Dunham. "Too Much" has borrowed so generously from a well-established rom-com subgenre that you might imagine you've seen his before (and have). 

But the viewer calculus with "Too Much" — watch or skip? — really gets down to a basic choice. If you love Megan Stalter, you'll love "Too Much," and if not, you probably won't. As both performer and character, she can be a lot, bordering on too much (the title cautionary to some degree). An office colleague tells Jessica that "you're not a mess [but] a work in progress," then more accurately clarifies to another, "she goes hard in the paint." Hard and loud.

But that's Stalter, who's great on "Hacks" as the clueless assistant (improbably promoted to some other job this past season). To her many fans, she's the single greatest thing about the show, too. Landing her own series was inevitable, and this is that series.

Like Kayla Schaeffer of "Hacks," her Jessica is initially clueless and acutely self-aware, then grows from there. But in "Too Much," she's also pathologically obsessed with someone named Wendy Jones, the influencer-girlfriend of her ex (Michael Zegen). Wendy happens to look like a supermodel and, in fact, is played by one (Emily Ratajkowski). In the argot of the body positivity movement, Jessica's "curvy," but also knows her boyfriend dumped her for someone who's a size 4.

She's come to England for work, but also to get away from Wendy because "nobody's a [expletive] influencer in the works of Jane Austen." Plus, in England "you can be any kind of woman you want." True or not, Wendy and her thoroughly obnoxious Instagram feed are still just an arm's length away. That makeover will have to wait as Jessica futilely attempts to understand what Wendy has that she hasn't got, and what she needs to do to get it. 

While "Too Much" is all Stalter, and to a lesser degree, Sharpe — both his character and the actor tend to get overwhelmed when she shares the screen — it's also all Dunham. Except for a couple brief scenes in the opener where she plays her older sister, Dunham is offscreen as the series writer and director. Her voice and style, so familiar to "Girls" fans, is laced through every scene and line of dialogue. At times, Jessica even seems to channel Hannah Horvath, and so you're never quite certain where Jessica ends and Hannah begins — or where Stalter ends and Dunham begins. A writer writes what she knows, and Dunham clearly knows how to write herself. Something else to figure into the viewer calculus: Love Dunham, and this is your show.

BOTTOM LINE Stalter's fun — no surprise there — but we've seen this show before (a few times).