![]() It’s hard to ignore the fact that loneliness and aspirational impotence are the same thing motivating the Only Murders in the Building crew, even if this show has more palm trees. I get that the fantasy sequences stem from the characters and their unfulfilled lives, but Based on a True Story has better ways of illustrating a version of loneliness and aspirational impotence that the show identifies as specifically Los Angeles-based. While one of those, featuring a dog, is hilarious in a warped way, the tendency is to move quickly from, “Yes, this is clearly another fantasy sequence” to “If this is clearly another fantasy sequence, why is it lasting so long and why should I care?” Rosenberg also indulges an annoying tic of sex- or murder-drenched fantasy sequences whenever the plot is lagging. The biggest problem is that at a certain point - specifically after a fitfully clever trip to Las Vegas for a true crime convention - Based on a True Story falls into a boring rut of threatened violence and threatened blackmail, obliterating whatever loose credulity the show had previously built up. Mad Man veteran Aaron Staton gets some loopy business in the home stretch, which definitely doesn’t come close to resolving what should have been a limited series. The supporting cast is either underdeveloped (Bateman engages enthusiastically with a character who’s more based on other fictional characters than on anything recognizably true) or shoehorned in (as a friend defined only by yoga pants and alleged blow job aptitude, Priscilla Quintana pops up frequently with limited logic, but is often funny). The actress lets her real-life pregnancy shape Ava’s physicality in amusing ways it adds a touch of poignancy to the strained relationship between Ava and Nathan, played with trademark masculinity-gone-to-seed urgency by Messina. As she has proven time and again on the generally superior The Flight Attendant, Cuoco makes for an exceptional everywoman caught up in heightened circumstances, able to generate frazzled laughs and grounded stakes with whiplash alacrity. When she begins to suspect that someone she knows just might be the still-at-large Westside Ripper, instead of calling the cops, Ava senses an opportunity: Could a podcast interviewing a serial killer be a pathway to a better life or might it just be a way to put their underwhelming lives in jeopardy?Ĭreator Craig Rosenberg ( The Boys) has crafted roles that steer into his stars’ strengths, albeit in fairly familiar ways. One of Ava’s main social outlets is a group of true crime podcast devotees. ![]() ![]() Oh, and they have rusty pipes, so they have to hire hunky plumber Matt (Tom Bateman). She’s a realtor stuck with one-bedroom apartment listings instead of the Palisades McMansions that bring in the big commissions. He’s a former tennis pro struggling to find purpose teaching bored kids and housewives at a club. Nathan (Messina) and Ava (Cuoco) have a decent life. But by halfway through the show’s eight-episode first season, its attempts at shocks become repetitive and its few original ideas run out of energy. Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina make for a likable central pairing and the West Los Angeles setting marks a subtle detour from standard Hollywood noir. Written by a survivor of the U-boat fleet, DAS BOOT is a psychological drama merciless in its intensity, and a classic novel of the Second World War.Cast: Kaley Cuoco, Chris Messina, Tom Bateman, Priscilla Quintana, Liana Liberato Of the 40,000 men who served on German submarines, 30,000 never returned. Their targets now travel in convoys, fiercely guarded by Royal Navy destroyers, and when contact is finally made the hunters rapidly become the hunted.Īs the U-boat is forced to hide beneath the surface of the sea a cat-and-mouse game begins, where the increasing claustrophobia of the submarine becomes an enemy just as frightening as the depth charges that explode around it. Over the coming weeks they must brave the stormy waters of the Atlantic in their mission to seek out and destroy British supply ships.īut the tide is beginning to turn against the Germans in the war for the North Atlantic. It is autumn 1941 and a German U-boat commander and his crew set out on yet another hazardous patrol in the Battle of the Atlantic. Filled with almost unbearable tension and excitement, DAS BOOT is one of the best stories ever written about war, a supreme novel of the Second World War and an acclaimed film and TV drama.
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