Does anybody remember Santa Clarita Diet? It was a demented situation comedy about a family coping with a real-estate selling mom who turned into a murderous zombie. It was a dark comedy that understood the dark and the comedic aspects. Timothy Olyphant and Drew Barrymore were really good in it as the human-zombie couple.
In TWITHATSFTGITW, Kristen Bell aims for a dark comedy/drama but doesn't really understand where the lines are or should be. For that reason, there are a lot more misses than hits in this limited series (with grand plans for a sequel, apparently).
It doesn't really reach comedic levels because Bell (and everyone else) plays it too straight and because, let's be honest, cannibalism really isn't that funny especially in the context displayed here. Just unnecessary. There are also sidebars left completely unexplored -- Scott...? -- which are a waste of time. So it's not a comedy.
But it's not a drama either because there are too many absurd pieces jammed into odd places. The never-ending mailbox repair? I guess that's supposed to be funny, but it's not and it befouls the things happening around it. I can see that fucking loathsome Dax fucker laughing his moronic ass off at that repetitive insert, but it's not funny at all and derails any dramatic elements. So it's not a drama.
Bell is kind of cute. It's weird, from one angle she looks so adorable and sexy, but she turns slightly and the light hits her a different way and its like "ughhh, what happened?"
The ending is stupidly convenient and has absolutely zero authenticity. Add in a repeated "joke" that isn't funny the first, third or fourth time, and you get the failures of this series in a nutshell.
I didn't hate it but only because when the light was right I liked looking at Bell. In the end, though, it was just another potentially good idea completely bungled by inept decisions.
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