‘Find Me in Paris’ is the ‘Doctor Who’/’Center Stage’ Mashup My Life Needed

Find Me in Paris Season 2 just hit Hulu and it should be — hands down — the most popular show on the streaming service.

Every so often a television show comes along that reinvents the medium. Hulu’s Find Me in Paris is not that show, but it is a wonderfully bonkers YA series about a time-traveling Russian princess who discovers herself — and the joys of hip-hop — in a modern day Paris ballet school. Find Me in Paris is what would happen if Center Stage and Doctor Who had a baby. (And I’m not talking about contemporary Doctor Who, I mean the vintage, jelly baby, weird one.) It’s wacky, it’s charming, there are steampunk villains, and I’m low key obsessed with it.

Find Me in Paris is — wait for it — an English-language German-French series about a Russian princess from 1905. Helena “Lena” Grisky (Jessica Lord) is the best goddamn ballerina at the Opéra de Paris’s ballet school, which means she’s following in the footsteps of fictional ballerinas like Meg Guiry from Phantom of the Opera. (Yes, this show takes place in that opera house/ballet school. The first episode is literally called “The Portal of the Opera.”)

Lena’s life is rather dreamlike. She’s rich, she’s beautiful, and she has a cute boyfriend named Henri (Christy O’Donnell). To show his love for her, Henri gives Lena a family heirloom, a beautiful necklace. To show her disdain for Henri, Lena’s mother insists that they go back to Russia immediately. Lena and Henri decide to make a run for it, but what neither know is the necklace Henri gave her is actually a time travel device. Because she’s wearing it, Lena gets transported to the Opéra de Paris of 2018.

Now, here’s where the show gets utterly daffy in the most delicious way. For some reason, the time-traveling princess is allowed to just stay on as a student in the modern ballet school. There she immediately makes a friend in the sweet British-American student Ines (Eubha Akilade) who shows her around. Other students include Thea (Hannah Dodd), a snotty influencer who is famous because she won a TV dance competition, Dash (Hiran Abeysekera), the friendly clown of the group, and Max (Castle Rock), a hip-hop dance-obsessed student. And don’t you dare think I didn’t notice that actor’s name is Castle Rock. Hulu, your cross-brand show promotion is going too far.

Back in 1905, Henri’s dad is fucking pissed at his dipshit son. You know how in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, when they total Cameron’s mean dad’s car, and it sucks? It’s like that, but his dad is like, “We’re time travelers and you just messed everything up! There are these Time Collectors who are going to steal our time travel necklaces! IDIOT!” By the way, the Time Collectors look like steampunk douchebags.

While Henri’s dad chases after Lena, Henri tries to find a way to contact his girlfriend through a magical chimney. He sends her this hilarious note informing her that he’s secretly a time traveler, and now she is, too. Henri also makes a point to stress that he’s not a vampire. I think this means he might yet be. Find Me in Paris, bring on the vampires.

While adapting to the modern world, Lena has to contend with new emotions, like lust for hot boy dancer Max (Rory J. Saper) and embarrassment, like when she tries to dance hip-hop for the first time.

Find Me in Paris is an alarmingly wild show that blends genres and gives no fucks. It is fun, silly, over-dramatic, and is somehow about a young woman who should have died in the Russian Revolution getting to dance on the roofs of Paris. However, my favorite part of Find Me in Paris is the very beginning. Each episode starts the same way: Lena explains the concept with a dramatic montage:

“My name is Lena Grisky and I go to the best ballet school in the world. I have a secret. I’m a time traveler from 1905 and my boyfriend Henri’s doing everything he can to get me home.”

The next thing that happens is the main cast of the show dances around a sound stage to an upbeat bop about being yourself. It’s insanity, and I love it.

I love you, Find Me in Paris. I hope that now that others find you and love you, too.

Watch Find Me in Paris on Hulu