Based on a True Story TV Review

Plot: Follows a realtor, a former tennis star and a plumber who seize a unique opportunity to capitalize on America’s obsession with true crime

Review: The only thing that is getting more tiresome than true-crime series are the projects that try to develop a twist on the already twist-heavy genre. While adaptations of actual criminal cases and murderers have not slowed down in recent years, there has been a new crop of fictional tales focused on average people obsessed with true crime and involved in the investigation themselves. At the same time, few have come close to the brilliance of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, which has not stopped podcast-oriented copycats from popping up on other streamers. The latest addition is Peacock’s Based on a True Story. The series from producers Michael Costigan and Jason Bateman boasts the star power of Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina as spouses who take a risk by starting their own true crime podcast to chronicle an active serial killer in their neighborhood. The result is a funny show stretching the concept pretty thin along with twists, some bonkers and others formulaic.

Based on a True Story follows Ava and Nathan Bartlett, a couple who have been married for ten years and are expecting their first child. Ava (Kaley Cuoco) is a struggling realtor mired in low-level listings, while Nathan (Chris Messina) is a former tennis star who has fallen to become the pro at a local country club. With money tight and a baby on the way, Nathan pines for his glory days while Ava and her friends are obsessed with true crime shows and podcasts. With a serial killer stalking their suburban California neighborhood, Ava and Chris jump on the chance to start their own podcast with the conceit that they have an inside track to talk to the murderer and get an exclusive about his motives, methods, and crimes. The problems arise when the couple becomes embroiled in the killer’s crimes and have to stay one step ahead of the police without risking the safety of their friends, family, or themselves.

Ava and Nathan are likable enough characters at the start, but their abhorrent plan to become rich and famous podcasters make them as bad as the serial killer they are chronicling. The trailer keeps much of the plot of Based on a True Story under wraps. Still, it does reveal how the Bartletts visit a true crime convention and crime scenes alongside their new friend, plumber Matt Pierce (Tom Bateman), Ava’s sister Tory (Liana Liberato), bartender Chloe Lake (Natalia Dyer), and Ava’s friends played by Pricilla Quintana and Annabelle Dexter-Jones. The cast themselves are all good as the body count rises, but something feels off. Based on a True Story opens with a sixty-minute episode before settling into half-hour chapters, each of which connects to the previous chapter with a cliffhanger ending that comes via a twist to the plot that is usually telegraphed from a mile away.

Kaley Cuoco’s recent series The Flight Attendant was a surprise with an intricate and pulpy plot that played with genre conventions, but Based on a True Story often feels like the writers thought more highly of their plot twists and red herrings than they should have. Sure, the core concept of this series presents a variation on the expected, but it doesn’t do much from there. Maybe that is because this is designed as an ongoing series rather than a limited one, giving the finale of the eighth episode less heft than it earned. The series starts out strong with a balance of humor rather than outright comedy but also gives us the chance to get to know the main characters while dropping little teases towards a direction the series could have gone but abandons halfway through. Once the Bartletts become associated with the killer, the series adapts a more grim sense of humor that I usually enjoy. The problem may be that rather than the darkness of the comedy driving the tone, Based on a True Story is presented as more satirical than I had hoped for.

Series creator Craig Rosenberg has most recently written for Prime Video’s The Boys and AMC’s Preacher, two very darkly comedic series which balance violence, humor, and drama in equal measure. While both of these series focus on supernatural elements to drive their stories, Based on a True Story is grounded in a realistic story. At first, it seems like the commentary on pop culture obsessions like podcasts and Dateline-style exposes will organically fit into the narrative, but Rosenberg (who wrote all eight episodes of the first season) dives headfirst into direct satire that is often blatant. Directors Alex Buono (Russian Doll), Jennifer Arnold (Shameless), Francesca Gregorini (Killing Eve), and Anu Valia (She-Hulk: Attorney At Law) do their best to add some vibrancy to the story which does not shy away from blood and violence on screen, even if it ultimately looks like every other show on television. Producers Michael Costigan (Under the Banner of Heaven) and Jason Bateman (Ozark) have experience delivering shows that delve into violence and murder, but the influence of neither is felt directly in this series.

Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina are solid in their shared scenes and make for a couple who are believable and likable, but that chemistry goes to waste as Based on a True Story revels in the bad deeds that turn these average people into terrible ones. I wanted to like this story but there is just so much about it that feels rote. So much of the series feels like it wants to be a pulpy adaptation of a true crime story, but without the pathos of reality, it ends up feeling like a retread of stories told before and done better. Based on a True Story, which drops all eight episodes at once, is designed to be the first season in an ongoing series but just doesn’t build enough momentum to deserve a second round.

Based on a True Story premieres on June 8th on Peacock.