Based on a True Story Review: Kaley Cuoco's Zippy True-Crime Send-Up Is a Good Time

Now that The Big Bang Theory has been laid to rest, Kaley Cuoco is having a very good time dealing with corpses. Liberated from the PG trappings of the bubbleheaded sitcom roles that made her famous, Cuoco's screwball charm got darker and more sophisticated in The Flight Attendant. That HBO Max hit was a fitting forerunner to her newest show, Based on a True Story. In the former, Cuoco had to figure out why she'd woken up next to a dead body. Here, she figures out how to monetize the dead bodies a serial killer is sprinkling across Los Angeles. 

As TV's murder-saga saturation continues, Cuoco has now made two of the genre's funniest diversions. Based on a True Story isn't as sharply structured as The Flight Attendant, but it doesn't need to be. Instead, the Peacock series, created by The Boys writer Craig Rosenberg, offers a winsome satire of this indefatigable cultural obsession. Cuoco and Chris Messina play a plateauing couple — she's a real-estate agent who can't level up, he's a professional tennis has-been stuck coaching amateurs — who discover they know the so-called Westside Ripper,  an assassin delighting the true-crime rubberneckers happy to have their own hometown antihero. 

Based on a True Story is the name of the get-rich-quick podcast that Cuoco's Ava and Messina's Nathan use to threaten the ripper. If he gives them exclusive interviews about what it's like to be a serial killer, they won't turn him in to the police. Clever, right? He also has to promise not to murder anyone else. The ripper agrees, as long as Nathan plays tennis with him on the side. This project, he vows, will be better than "every other dead-white-girl podcast" on the market — and we all know there are a lot of those. (Peacock requested his identity be withheld from reviews. The show's trailers are careful not to give him away.) 

7.2

Based on a True Story

at Peacock

Like

• Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina
• Punchy commentary about the true-crime fad
• Breezy episodes

Dislike

• Forgettable supporting characters
• An unnecessary cliffhanger at the season's end

Now that it's ubiquitous across mediums, true crime is primed for lampoonery. The uproarious Netflix mockumentary American Vandal set a high bar in 2017, one that Based on a True Story can't clear. Thankfully, it doesn't try to. Rosenberg's show is less an out-and-out spoof than it is a meta romp caricaturing the public's devotion to strangers' grisly deaths. Ava and Nathan's biggest competition is Sisters in Crime, a My Favorite Murder-esque chat fest that cloaks its zest in performative talk of victim advocacy. They know what they're doing is morally bankrupt, and that's where the show finds its strongest humor. When the podcast initially struggles to land an audience, Ava, Nathan, and their unlikely collaborator travel to a true-crime convention where irony builds as no one realizes they're steps away from one of the real-life slayers they worship. After the pod does take off, its makers can't help but celebrate the riches that could result from a multimillion-dollar Spotify deal. 

A lot of ink has been spilled on the ethics and economics of true crime. Based on a True Story boils all that chatter down to one succinct thesis: The genre is ridiculous. Only Murders in the Building makes the same suggestion with the same lens (DIY podcasting), but the plot is too much of a mystery unto itself to offer much incisive commentary. True Story lets the audience know early on that the person we think is the killer really did commit the Scream-worthy carnage he's accused of. The real riddle is whether Ava and Nathan can keep the podcast alive without anyone knowing they're behind it. The fun lies in the series' send-up of the frenzy that true crime has inspired. One of its best jokes involves a shameless attention seeker who's written a book claiming to be the Westside Ripper's sole survivor. 

It's too bad the show is burdened by side characters that don't totally jibe with the rest of what's going on. Ava and Nathan's coterie of friends feel like a distraction, there to stretch out the plot rather than provide worthwhile color. It's far more compelling to watch two semi-hapless people realign their world now that there's a serial murderer in it. Fortunately, most episodes don't run longer than 25 minutes. It never takes much time to get to the good stuff. 

And there's a lot of good stuff. Based on a True Story teases a potential second season when a self-contained story would probably suffice, but there is a rich hook on the horizon: The Westside Ripper wants to franchise the podcast, make it inclusive. Isn't it time for BIPOC butchers to get their day? That joke alone has enough blood to keep things interesting. 

Premieres: Thursday, June 8 on Peacock
Who's in it: Kaley Cuoco, Chris Messina, Tom Bateman, Natalia Dyer, Priscilla Quintana, Aaron Staton
Who's behind it: Craig Rosenberg (The Boys, Preacher)
For fans of: Zippy comedies and true-crime spoofs 
How many episodes we watched: 8 of 8