Elizabeth Banks and Matthew Macfadyen’s sci-fi show The Miniature Wife overwhelms

Small people have been a staple of science fiction and fantasy since the time of Jonathan Swift Gulliver’s TravelsAnd shrunken characters have made headlines in everything from classic Hollywood movies to bride of frankenstein And great trip Like family-friendly blockbusters ant Man And honey, i shrunk the kids. References to these films and others are scattered throughout the new Peacock Limited series. short wifeBut the drawn-out, 10-episode show isn’t particularly meaningful to the sci-fi’s shrinking canon.

Taking only the title and basic premise from Manuel Gonzales’s 2014 short story, short wife Elizabeth Banks plays Lindy Littlejohn, a once-prominent writer who now works as a university professor and is overshadowed by her scientist husband Les (Matthew Macfadyen). You see, Lindy feels figuratively small in both her personal and professional life, and after an accident she’s about to get literally small – or Is it? – With the potentially world-changing invention of lace, a compound that shrinks objects to about 1/12th their original size.

The biggest problem for Lindy is that Les has not yet developed a stable antidote to his formula, and everything he has tried so far to return to his original shape has been destroyed almost immediately. Since this is a streaming series with a bloated modern reputation, however, Lindy has other, less interesting problems, including a complex plagiarism scandal involving one of her students’ short stories that was inadvertently published under her name. the new Yorker. She has also been having an “emotional affair” with Les’s co-worker Richard (OT Fagbenle), whose interest in her is even stronger than hers.

Meanwhile, Les has signed a deal with an apparently evil oligarch (Ronny Chiang), repurposing his obnoxious tech bro persona. M3GAN) and he has only 30 days to produce the antidote before he loses the rights to all his operations. short wife Les devotes a lot of time to the tiresome office politics at his company, where the demanding but enthusiastic scientist Vivienne (Zoe Lister-Jones) has been appointed as his new boss. There are also enough subplots for the Littlejohns’ university-student daughter Lulu (Sophia Rosinski) and Lindy’s editor and best friend Terry (Sian Clifford) that they serve as nothing more than padding for a meandering, focusless series.

Creators Jennifer Ames and Steve Turner should have started by shortening their show’s episodes, which are about 45 minutes long and awkwardly split the difference between comedy and drama. short wife It includes some typical shrunken-person antics for Lindy as she takes up residence in a doll’s house and has to fight insects and household pets, as well as the exhausting relationship drama between Lindy and Les as their already shaky marriage falls apart under the pressure of extraordinary circumstances.

“We all suck,” Lulu says about the Littlejohn family in a season one episode, and she’s totally right. Lindy and Les are both personally insufferable, and they clearly bring out the worst in each other. This may be tolerable if short wife was a dark comedy throughout, and there comes a point around the middle season when the fighting between the husband and wife approaches something so disgusting war of roses. But Lindy’s initial declaration that “this is a love story” must be taken at face value, and as the series progresses, attempts to portray the Littlejohns as a couple become increasingly strained and unconvincing. There is no chemistry between Banks and McFadden, neither as lovers nor as rivals, and McFadden too often makes mistakes in conveying emotion.

As science fiction, short wife is overwhelming, filled with complex-sounding yet ultimately meaningless mathematical jargon and far-reaching logical leaps, with special effects that often don’t match the visuals of a 1981 Lily Tomlin comedy. incredible shrinking womanAnother obvious effect. “I’ve created a little monster,” Les laments, but he gives himself too much credit. All it has really done is cause a small irritation.