Brief Story Line
The newlyweds Rob Fisher (Jack Whitehall - Clifford the Red Dog, Fresh Meat TV series etc) and his wife Samira (Keke Palmer - The Pickup, Lightyear etc) had just moved to Rob's childhood home in the suburb where they decided to raise their infant child. Samira became good friends with their neighbors that included kind hearted, recently widowed Lynn (Julia Duffy - Christmas with the Campbells, Newhart TV series etc), ex marine Dana (Paula Pell - Girls5eva TV series, Summer of 69 etc) and the calm & collected Tom (Mark Proksch - What We Do in the Shadows TV series, Decker comedy series etc), while Rob reconnect with his best friend from school Naveen (Kapil Talwalkar - Night Court sitcom, Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist TV series etc).
However the Fishers' peaceful life was turned upside down when new neighbor Gary (Justin Kirk - Weeds TV series, Vice etc) moved to the old house opposite theirs, where a young girl was rumored to be killed there 20 years before. Samira who was intrigued about the house and suspected Gary's intention of moving there, managed to convince her new friends to investigate despite the disapproval from Rob.
So what would happen to all of them? You could find out in this series.
End of Brief Story Line
To be honest, I did not have any knowledge about the series and just thought the synopsis sounded interesting. So I kind of went with the flow when watching this. It actually started quite OK with pretty solid comedy supported by the cast (more on that later). Then slowly the mystery was revealed which had got something to do with the Fishers' new neighbor (reminded me a bit about the movie Disturbia) and for a while it did feel like the story might be following its style. As the story progressed though, the direction changed a bit with a different kind of mystery.
The early episodes were fun to watch with its witty dialogues & humor and the friendship between Samira with her new friends/neighbors who had their own uniqueness. However, I did feel sometimes the series got slightly too heavy with social issues which personally made it a little less fun. This was apparent especially in the first half and a bit towards the end. After the 4th episode though, I felt the series focused more on the mystery solving with more interesting characters appearing that made me curious. Unfortunately my enjoyment was almost ruined when I realize a huge information was missing in the 5th episode. Luckily I suspected something was off and decided to give the 6th episode a try where I realized there was indeed a mistake in the sequence. I am not sure whether it was Peacock's mistake or HBO Max' error cause they got the 5th and 6th epsiode flipped. So if you are going to start watching, better be careful on this. Sadly for me, I accidentally found out a huge spoiler due to this error.
Anyway like any other mystery series, the fun was trying to deduce or guess the mystery and frankly I was quite surprised with what happened in the 7th episode but I was not shocked with the twist in the finale. In fact, I did feel that it was not a very complex mystery but it was still fun nonetheless. Only thing was the series ended on a cliffhanger which would be upsetting if it is not renewed. If that is the case, I might need to find where I could watch the movie this was based on. Yes it was indeed an adaptation of 1989 film of the same title starring Tom Hanks (he appeared in the form of photograph in the series).
This series itself was created by Celeste Hughey (prior experience including writer of Dead to Me TV series & producer of Palm Royale TV series). Keke Palmer was also credited as Executive Producer in here. Aside from the cast I mentioned above, there were plenty of guest stars such as RJ Chyler (The Harder They Fall, I'm Dying Up Here TV series etc) as Samira's brother Langston, Max Carver (The Leftovers TV series A Midsummer Night's Dream etc) as police officer Dan Daniels, Erica Dasher (Jane by Design TV series etc) as Betsy and several others. They even included two people who appeared in the original movie in minor/cameo roles here, i.e. Wendy Schaal (Innerspace, Fantasy Island TV series etc) and Corey Feldman (The Goonies, Stand By Me etc). I said also that the comedy in here were pretty solid which I believed was due to the main cast who were mostly comedians or experienced in comedic roles.
In the end, this was pretty OK and fun enough for a comedy mystery series. There were few humorous moments from the situation the characters were in, plus some witty dialogues. It has a mystery that might not be very challenging for hard core fans of whodunit but still interesting to find out the truth. It only has 8 episodes with duration between 35-48 minutes which would make it easy to finish binge watch in a day. However, there were few things that I thought were downside, such as the incomplete info on the character Betsy, the unclarity of whether or not it will be renewed with a cliffhanger ending and the rather unnecessary addition of the social issues (it would be nicer if they just stick to the humor & mystery).
Looked like critics were quite impressed with the series, though not sure yet about audience reactions as it is still brand new. Let's hope it is successful enough to warrant for second season. So if you are in the mood for something light with a bit of mystery and comedy in suburban area adapted from the cult classic 1989 movie, then you are welcome to give it a try. But if you are more on a very sophisticated whodunit with a conclusive ending, then this might not be satisfying. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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