‘The Woman in the House…,” Kristen Bell’s Mystery Parody, Isn’t Mysterious or Funny: TV Review
variety.comDaniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticA comedy mystery should, ideally, be both comic and mysterious.Unfortunately, the new Netflix series “The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window” drops one of its most successful jokes in its title — and doesn’t have much to recommend it as a whodunit, either.
A parody of book-club thrillers like “The Girl on the Train” and “The Woman in the Window,” this series stars Kristen Bell as a grieving mother who has descended into substance abuse and who becomes obsessed with a crime she believes she’s seen.
The tricky thing about this plot is that it’s effectively indistinguishable from what might be featured in one of the books or movies the show’s lampooning, and so needs to be jazzed up either with great gags or sharp execution to keep us watching.
Neither is true. This series’ title and certain early moments — as when Bell drops the cork from her wine bottle into a massive pile of them — suggest that this series will have a Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker level of relentless comic ingenuity.
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