Netflix, The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell

The show has an Addams Family vibe to it. The puppet creature are odd, so are the actors. The series has only ten or so episodes so I don't know if it's going to last or not.

The puppets hate each other. Half the show is them japing and jibing and it's not that great of writing. A mummy Asian cat has no charm at all. A large werewolf is depicted as a big dumb dog, and a raccoon creature is an amalgamation of various things with a hand made of a fork with bent tines. That character was created by Christine, rescued from a dumpster and sewn together. The show is about her skill at creating large cakes and her technique and the materials and methods she uses to create them, along with some crafts, while a central creature of her creation is a total mess.

I like it.

But I'm not sure it's going anywhere because it doesn't have a defined target audience. It's unclear who the audience would be, similar to Rocky Horror Picture Show. Who was that expected to appeal to? There was no way to anticipate something so weird would become a cult classic. Cake bakers are lovely people. Children are little angels. So these cannot be the target audience. I like it because it's so off-the-wall, both childish and for mature audience in places.

I nearly choked laughing tonight when Rose, the Frankenstein raccoon responds to a knock on the door, "I'LL GET IT!" Each time there's a knock at the door as a child does eager to be the first to see who is there.

It was Rose's birthday and Christine told her to go to the basement and clean it up for an expected guest. So she could make a surprise cake. Rose is despondent they forgot her birthday, while the other characters are making a cake in the shape of Rose. The cake is technical with extreme detail in face and fur and four separate cakes, separate flavors and separate frostings, to honor Rose's separate parts, brought together to form Rose on her back. The center is cut out in the shape of a bowl containing Rose's guts, the way she was found in the dumpster. The puppet Rose keeps coming up from the basement to spy on what they're doing then returns to the basement worse off imagining her life worthless, thinking they're making her replacement. She feels abused and neglected and thinks about taking revenge. She gets so worked up to an emotional frenzy the ugly puppet yells, "I'M GOING TO BURN THIS GODDAMN HOUSE DOWN!"

I split a gut laughing at that puppet yelling so emphatically because right there the show alienates over half its intended viewers. It's too weird, too cool, too technical, too raunchy to appeal to a broad Netflix audience.

I wish there were more episodes.