Parents' Guide to The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window

While a worthy experiment, this genre-bending show just isn't funny, or suspenseful, enough to keep viewers wanting to return for all eight episodes. On paper, The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window could work. The cliche of the woman who witnesses a crime but isn't sure she can trust her own mind is so overdone it's practically begging to be spoofed. Add in Kristen Bell's deft ability to walk the line between humor and suspense, which she repeatedly demonstrated on Veronica Mars, and the recipe for success is there. Where the show falls short, is in its ongoing inability to choose between the two genres. In trying to have it both ways, it succeeds only in missing the mark for both.

In the beginning the jokes mostly land; the ridiculous title, the unending baking (and breaking) of casseroles, and Anna's utterly meaningless narration shine a light on the shallow and misogynistic framing of the women central to this trope. Pretty soon the jokes stop long enough for Bell's performance to genuinely pull the viewer into the story; only to be violently pulled back out by the horrifically ridiculous manner in which her daughter was murdered. From there the genre-vaulting never stops being jarring, especially when the joke is so unclear the viewer can't even be sure they're supposed to be laughing.