There’s so much overlong TV out there in the streaming era, but the Starz horror-comedy “Shining Vale” has to be one of this year’s most damning, counter-intuitive examples. Because it needs to take up so much running time, its few good ideas about characters, alive and dead, lose much of their impact. And while the series achieves a lighthearted gothic tone to match the haunted house it mostly takes place in, both its horror and comedy are used cheaply.
Courteney Cox nonetheless gives an energetic performance plays Pat, an author experiencing a bonafide midlife crisis. She’s been struggling to write her follow-up to a previous, salacious fictional novel, and she had an affair with a repairman named Frank. The Phelps family has decided to move three hours from the scene of the infidelity to an imposing classic mansion with massive rooms and not so much natural light. Their children, the rebellious Gaynor (Gus Birney) and Oculus-addicted Jake (Dylan Gage), don’t like the place so much, but Pat’s supportive husband, Terry (Greg Kinnear), tries to make it work. He has to, as he’s also keeping up a facade about the hurt from the affair. All the while, Pat struggles. She’s unhappy, and she can’t focus. She can’t write. She needs help.
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The house is haunted by a spirit that Starz wants reviewers to largely keep secret—but we can say her name is Rosemary, and that she’s played by Mira Sorvino. Sorvino is strange and elusive in the part, playing a dark version of a societal image. But at least in the seven episodes provided for press, she remains too much of a question mark. Rather, the power of this story comes from Cox’s wild performance, though the stakes are not as emotional despite the focus on her wellbeing. She is in a history of women just like Pat being historically silenced, of their mental health considered as part of a hysteria. The opening title card to the first episode notes how the symptoms of a woman’s depression are the same as being possessed.
Created by Sharon Horgan (“Catastrophe”) and Jeff Astrof, “Shining Vale” ends up having heartfelt things to say about depression, mental illness, and epigenetics when the plotting does provide a chance to say them. And if you’re wondering if “Shining” is an intentional part of the title, you’d be right. Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” is a big influence on this series but it becomes part of an unfunny joke; there are so many references it throws in just for the sake of it. Not only is Pat a writer struggling to create new work in isolation, motivated by the spirits, but there are numerous shots that make direct callbacks, including one of someone in a bathtub, slowly pulling back the curtain. (Her living room curtains, meanwhile, have the same pattern as the Overlook Hotel’s carpet). There’s also a prominent ax, but it’s like this series was written as a direct spoof, only to have the joke pulled back.
This specific reference wouldn’t be so tedious, or just plain strange, if the other horror elements in “Shining Vale” were stronger. But while the story whips up some acute psychological comedy about women in different generations experiencing and wrestling with the same mental illness, its supernatural attempts are junky. It’s a lot of smash-cuts to blackened eyes, or slam-bang moments right before a scene cuts, without there being much horror in the middle of said sequence. The story itself does not try to be freaky, except for moments in which it needs to remind you to tune in for the next episode.
“Shining Vale” is the kind of series that just does not warrant its length, especially as its frugal supernatural points just barely nudge Pat to its larger scheme. It’s bizarre too, how there aren’t any major gaps of intrigue with its story—the other family members have fun diversions, like Gaynor and her growing religion, or Terry experiencing his own midlife crisis spurred by events from the home. But it’s more that they take away from the show’s main curiosity while reminding you that in a different format they would be colorful character elements instead of full-on detours.
Rather, it becomes obvious that the stronger, kookier, more incisive elements are saved for the beginning of the series and also its end. Again, press was only supplied seven episodes, but episode eight is guaranteed to be one of its busiest, and juiciest. It’s too bad that it takes almost four hours to get there. [C-]
“Shining Vale” debuts on Starz on March 6.