Summary
A wonderful Kaley Cuoco performance isn’t enough to save a show that can’t decide what it wants to be or what it wants to say.
This review of the Peacock series Based on a True Story Season 1 does not contain spoilers.
Soon, all entertainment media will be, or will at least be about, true crime.
It’s easy to see this inevitable future because of a show like Based on a True Story, a darkly comic Peacock crime drama that is based on our obsession with true crime without being particularly true itself – despite the title deliberately suggesting it might be.
It’s very meta, but not very good.
Based on a True Story Season 1 review and plot summary
The idea, to be fair, isn’t bad. The plot concerns Ava (Kaley Cuoco) and Nathan (Chris Messina), a married couple expecting their first child who’re struggling financially and drifting apart emotionally. She’s a realtor who can sell one-bed apartments but not, apparently, the kind of mansions that would net her a sizeable commission; he’s a former tennis pro who once beat Roger Federer but is now a coach at an elitist club that is ready to put him out to pasture.
Ava is also obsessed with true crime. This is partly why, when she, Nathan, and their plumber friend Matt (Tom Bateman) discover the identity of the Westside Ripper, a serial killer active in the West L.A. circles they move in, instead of taking what they know to the police they instead try to capitalize on a lucrative podcasting opportunity.
But despite this attention-grabbing premise, which condemns the kind of audience it’s also trying to appeal to, Based on a True Story is less about a serial killer than it is a failing marriage.
But it’s mostly about one thing after another, and creator Craig Rosenberg (The Boys) can’t seem to decide where the whole thing should settle. It’s too toothless to be a real satire – a midpoint trip to a true crime convention in Las Vegas notwithstanding – and too silly to be a character study. Its attempts to shock or liven up the pacing are too obviously try-hard, with one death in particular that almost felt like an homage to the church scene in Hot Fuzz, but more out of place.
The show’s most annoying formal quirk, though, is frequent indulgence in fantasy sequences when either Ava or Nathan imagines how their lives might be more exciting if they weren’t stuck in such a rut. Ava fantasises about having sex with one of her clients (Alex Alomar Akpobome) in almost every episode. And there’s a bleak sequence involving Nathan, Ava’s best friend Ruby (Priscilla Quintana), and a dog that goes on for so long I started to suspect it was real, despite an earlier scene making clear it couldn’t possibly be.
I kept expecting Rosenberg to do something interesting with this, to pull the rug on our expectations a little, but that never happens. The back half of the eight-episode season becomes a wearing exercise in the obvious, settling for the most predictable developments every time it seemed a twist was due.
And, in classic streaming fashion, it doesn’t bother to end.
Is Based on a True Story good or bad?
Still, there are upsides – Cuoco, in particular, remains a fantastically gifted comic actress, and her real-life pregnancy adds an extra note of believability to a frazzled woman trying to live out her true crime fantasies without losing herself or her husband in the process.
But the material isn’t worthy of the performances. The odd funny line or sequence is undermined by illogical plotting, braindead decision-making, or too-obvious commentary. And the few dynamics and ideas that are interesting only remain relevant for long enough to tee up a joke or plot turn, then are swiftly abandoned.
Is Based on a True Story worth watching?
Fans of the true crime genre will definitely feel seen here, but they might also feel a bit insulted by a show that questions their morals and intellect without displaying any of its own.
What did you think of Based on a True Story Season 1? Comment below.
You can watch this series with a subscription to Peacock.
