(TV SERIES) Based on a True Story Season 1 - An Entertaining Comedy Series on True Crime Podcast

While I was looking for something to watch on HBO Go as it had been quite some time since I watched anything there, I came across this series which looked interesting. So I gave it a try 2 nights ago and managed to complete it last night. Without further ado, here's more on the series.

Brief Story Line

Ava (Kaley Cuoco - Man from Toronto, The Big Bang Theory TV series etc) was a pregnant woman working as real estate agent and had been married for years with Nathan Bartlett (Andrew Messina - I Care a Lot, The Mindy Project TV series etc), a former tennis star who now worked as coach in a luxurious country club. They lived with Ava's younger sister Tory (Liana Liberato - Totally Killer, Light as a Feather TV series etc) and were best friends with several rich people, including Ruby (Priscilla Quintana - Pandora TV series etc).

The Bartletts were having financial problems and even had trouble in paying their plumber Matt (Tom Bateman - Death on the Nile, Da Vinci's Demons TV series etc) who later became friends with Nathan. When an unexpected turn of event happened to them, Ava decided to create a podcast about true crime on a serial killer despite the strong disapproval from Nathan. However, it was not exactly as easy as they thought and became complicated and brought danger on their lives.

So what would happen to them? You could find out in this series.

End of Brief Story Line

Now I am not a fan of podcast but I know that it's a growing trend in the US with many movies and series highlighted about this (one of them that crossed my mind was Only Murders in the Building which I liked a lot). This series started off with the introduction of the characters and it was done so nicely that immediately I could relate to the Bartletts as regular married couple. The story progress was very smooth without feeling any rush but somehow by the end of the first episode, we could already see where it was heading. Oh and the opening scene was also a great factor to keep me intrigued.

The subsequent episodes had much shorter duration of only around 28-29 minutes as compared to the pilot which had 42 minutes. So yeah it was pretty short series but through 8 episodes, there was a lot of development on all the characters. With such short duration, no wonder it did not take long for me to finish the whole season. Btw this is a Peacock original series which was released in full on 8 June 2023 and was made available on HBO in Asia. It was fortunate for me in Indonesia, otherwise I would not have the chance to watch it legally.

The series was classified as comedy thriller which I thought was quite correct as it had some thrilling moments from the killing but mostly on the comedy side. The humor was amazing as they were from the intelligently created dialogues and Kaley Cuoco was just wonderful as this character. Many times I laughed because of her behavior. It just seem like she effortlessly became this smart woman who could come up with great idea, had high imagination but sometimes could feel vurnerable too. And Chris Messina was also fantastic as this washed up tennis player who sometimes had confidence crisis. Their chemistry was great and it was so nice looking at this married couple.

With the addition of Tom Bateman, the series just felt perfect as he was convincing in his role. His dynamic with the Bartletts was fun to watch. Aside from those names above, there was one more name as part of the main cast, i.e Natalia Dyer (Stranger Things TV series etc) as the bartender Chloe Lake. In addition, the first season had plenty of recurring cast and guest stars like Li Jun Li (Wu Assassins TV series etc) as Nathan's colleague Michelle, Lizze Broadway (Gen V TV series etc) as Dahlia Stone, Aaron Staton (Mad Men TV series etc) as Ruby's husband Simon and few others. 

When I watched the closing credits, I noticed the familiar name Jason Bateman as one of the executive producers, along with Craig Rosenberg as the series creator & writer, and Kaley Cuoco herself. However I did not see anything it was based on, so credit has to be given to Rosenberg for his creativity. I read also that the series had been renewed for second season in October 2023, which was great news for me as I want to see what's next in store for the Bartletts after that ending of the season.

Overall this is an entertaining series which managed to combine the comedic nature arising from the situation the Bartletts were in and also made a bit of mockery on the true crime podcast and how it affected the lives of Americans. The entertaining story, the amazing cast and the wonderful writing certainly added the element of enjoyment, although to my surprise it was not as highly praised as I thought would be by critics. So if you like this sort of story, then I think you would enjoy the series as much as I did.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars