Based on a True Story

...I have been waiting for this show for a long time! I was so excited and of course binged the whole thing. Easy to watch but it does drag just a bit in places. Not enough that I turned it off or lost interest! It has soooo many amazing people too. I've loved many of the things the leads are in. I do hope it's renewed for a second season because I want them to amp it up and tell more of the murderers story and give us more murders haha. It's such a great concept too. In this world of true crime and podcasts and making millions it just make sense that someone would eventually team up with a murderer to be able to tell the stories first. Bateman is great! They all are were great truthfully, not a bad actor in the bunch. I'll be here for the next installment for sure.

To be honest, I wasn't all that excited for this series, but I gave the show a chance and it was decent. Now that the second season is over, I still think this show is decent.

Positives for Based on a True Story (2023-): I think the setup of this series is pretty good and it was interesting for the most part. Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina as Ava and Nathan are pretty good in the show and they have some fun banter between themselves and other characters. There are some cool and unique kills with a decent amount of gore to them in the show. The whodunnit aspect of the series was fun and I was intrigue with where the mysteries were going. And finally, this is one of those series that I wouldn't mind seeing more seasons of it.

Negatives for Based on a True Story (2023-): There are a number of things that annoyed in the series. First off, you have Tom Bateman as Matt Pierce and while he is certainly doing a good job with his character the way he was intended to be, there are moments where he got on my nerves and I wanted to kick his ass. There are also a number of dream sequences in this series that I hated and they do it too many times. And finally, some of the answers to these mysteries didn't sit well with me.

Overall, I had a decent time with Based on a True Story (2023-) and while I didn't fully love it, I wouldn't hate seeing more seasons from this show.

After reading all the negative reviews here, I threw my own negative review away and started over. I'm going to call this a campy murder romp instead.

I was expecting more from Exec Prod Jason Bateman after Ozark. And while this COULD've been done more darkly like Ozark, I see now that they were playing the social media fame obsession AND murder story only for laughs and gags. Does it work? Kinda. Maybe. The jokes and dialogue could be smarter. The use of dream sequences gets a little overworked.

Cuoco and Messina play two desperate and bumbling fame-seekers who do some completely implausible things in an effort to chase notoriety but only get deeper into trouble. It's kind of a send-up of the whole social media true crime phenomenon, but it's not an obvious satire. It works if you go into it with the idea that you, the viewer, are smarter than all of the characters on the screen. They're going to prove you right in every scene.

Yes, it's obviously implausible that anyone would do any of the things that happen here. Or is it? Social media has shown that not everyone is as smart as us.

I like Cuoco and Messina but not their characters. I just want them to call the cops and end the shenanigans. And the Matt character is a bit over the top, but if you look at it like a send-up, it helps.

Don't be taken by surprise when S-1 just kind of ends without resolution. That's how it goes.

Enjoyed it. Was better than I expected. However...

There was no finale. It just... ends. There are ten different plot threads all left wide open. I thought there were two episodes left to wrap up the season, instead it was over.

This wasn't a split season. It's not even renewed yet. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with a show ending on a cliffhanger. I expect it. But every episode ends with one, and every previous episode had a better one than the "finale".

A season needs to finish with a sense of completion somewhere, not just roll straight into the next one. Severance did this as well. After the last episode I thought, "man, the season finale is going to be fierce!"

Instead, it's just... show over. Hope you still remember the characters and storylines a year and a half from now, because there won't be any resolution until then. That is, assuming the show survives the writers strike.

Overall, enjoyed the show. I'm not much of a binger, but my wife and I finished it in a couple of days. If my entire review is complaining it ended too soon, I suppose I'd recommend it.

I'm not into the serial killer hype. I even avoid horror and thriller genres these days. But the fun and excitement tone of the show successfully lure me to watch till the 8th episode.

My main gripe about the show is the ABUSIVE AMOUNT of MISLEADING & IMAGINATIVE SCENES (including one in the finale episode) that try to trick audiences to think or feel something about the respective Plots, before the editors abruptly switch them back to IRL scenes. The cheap tactic becomes more and more ANNOYING to me as the show progresses. Hope they won't use it again in future season, should they gain enough traction in viewership to validate continuation.