Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Nada’ On Hulu, About A Man Forced To Change When His Home Situation Goes South (Oh, And Robert De Niro Is In It, Too)

If you were to guess what kind of series would mark Robert De Niro‘s first television series role, you likely wouldn’t guess it would be an Argentinian dramedy, would you? But Nada marks Bobby D.’s first foray into television, and even though he’s the top-billed star in the promotional material, he’s not really the focus of the series.

NADA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A man crosses the street in Buenos Aires. When a car almost hits him, the man yells to the driver, “Do you think you own the street?”

The Gist: In New York, a journalist named Vincent Parisi (Robert De Niro… yes, you read that right), looks at the camera and describes “one of my greatest friends,” a man he almost never sees and maybe speaks to on the phone once or twice per year. “His name is Manuel Tamayo Prats (Louis Brandoni), and he is a true dandy.”

Manuel is a writer and a food critic in Buenos Aires, and for the last 40 years, his live-in housekeeper Celsa (María Rosa Fugazot) has kept his life running smoothly. And given how particular he is about, well, everything, that’s no small task. He can tell, for instance, when she uses a different oil to make his French toast in the morning, and gently tells her that it must be the hard-to-get oil she usually has.

When he goes to a restaurant for one of his reviews, he tries everything and in his mind he already has his slings and arrows ready. He gets petty cash from Celsa to tip the wait staff when the owner inevitably sees him and comps his meal.

During the meal, his publisher comes by for some coffee and tells Manuel that he hasn’t seen even half a page from the book that he promised his late father three years prior. Manuel makes some haughty excuses, but the publisher tells him in no uncertain terms that he has two months to give him something or else he’ll have to pay back his advance.

One problem: He’s already spent that money. In fact, he’s almost broke. To keep up his lifestyle, he’s been selling his art. When he has friends over for a dinner party, his art dealer buddy tries to tell him that he has very little left worth selling, except for one piece that Manuel refuses to part with.

After the meticulously-cooked dinner Celsa made according to Manuel’s instructions, he wakes up late the next morning, and finds out something that will turn his life upside down.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Nada is about a man who is as fastidious as Adrian Monk, as condescending as Frasier Crane and as helpless as a CBS sitcom husband.

Our Take: De Niro’s name is being bandied about as the star of Nada, and that’s understandable, though we’re scratching our heads at why Bobby D. decided to make his entry into TV in a smallish role on an Argentinian dramedy. But the show’s star is really Brandoni as Manuel, who finds himself needing to rebuild his life after Celsa departs and he has to hire a young woman from Paraguay named Antonia (Majo Cabrera) to help him manage his life.

Brandoni is a grumpy delight as Manuel. Despite his increasingly dire financial situation, he’s so ensconced in his life as currently situated that he refuses to make any changes. Of course that means that as things fly apart around him, his ability to adapt is laughable at best, dangerous to his health at worst.

The soundtrack to the series gives the show its lived-in feel, with the casual-sounding jazz that makes jazzy shows like Only Murders In The Building seem frantic by comparison. But Nada is certainly a show whose score, and the city in which it takes place, are almost as critical to the series as its characters are.

De Niro’s role isn’t just a brief cameo, but until the final episode, he’s mostly there as a narrator, defining the colloquialism in each episode’s title and describing life in Buenos Aires (which sounds a lot like life in New York). Is he making a ton of acting effort during those narrations? Not really; in fact, it looks like he’s reading off a teleprompter. But we’re looking forward to the final episode, when Vincent visits his friend in Buenos Aires for the first time in what is probably a very long time.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Let’s just say that Manuel’s reaction to what’s going on with Celsa is very Manuel-centric.

Sleeper Star: Silvia Kutika is Grace, a good friend of Manuel’s and a person with whom he long ago had a relationship. Despite his quirks, she seems to have great affection for him, and it shows in her performance.

Most Pilot-y Line: During a radio appearance, Manuel describes the “insolence of Argentinian cuisine” in the type of language only a haughty food critic would use.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Nada is a series about a man learning how to live on his own for the first time in many years, and it just happens to have Robert De Niro in it. But the reason to watch is actually the performance of the show’s actual star, Luis Brandoni.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.