Foster Family

In a nutshell "The perfect couple" is a 6 hour long, glossy looking, "exhibition" of totally unlikable, stereotypical people, pointlessly bubbling around in an extremely ridiculous, contrived situation. It doesn't feel great panning other people's work, I wanted to like this series, I wanted to get lost in the storytelling and play detective, as we all do with this genre but instead I found this work clearly lacked the rigor, discipline and just the basic essentials to make it artistically successful and deliver an immersive, compelling viewing experience. Instead it came across as a self-indulgent, childish play acting, absurd romp. Worst of all it was really boring. I felt ripped off. Literally the only mystery about this work is why it was given the green light and why it's getting rave reviews in the mainstream media? Is this, along with all the "reality dating shows" the banal standard we're all meant to accept nowadays? The last two questions are why, having never written a review before, I've taken the time to write this. I feel gaslit and I want quality! There are alot of problems with this series but I'll just focus on what I think was the biggest fault i.e stereotypes. Stereotypes are meant to be (and generally) only used as short hand, to quickly convey an impression and spring board for something else. However the "The perfect couple" couldn't move past it's own stereotypes and they were flogged for 6 hours and inherently that doesn't work. "The perfect couple" creators had plenty of time and the opportunity to flesh out the characters and to imbue them with what actually makes all people interesting and engaging i.e humanity and nuance. Even if the audience isn't meant to like this family we all know that in most successful "unlikable" character stories are they're given something to work off, a hook, that makes them interesting, and even somewhat sympathic. These characters were given nothing and consequently, I didn't believe in, like or care about any of them really.The only exception to that were the police officers and the murder victim who managed to portray a refreshing glimpse of authenticity to their roles and I'm guessing that's probably because they still have to work for their livings and still care about what they produce. In lieu of the character story development in the plot and script, I really felt the rest of the actors took that as a cue to do the bare minium, take the pay check and basically decided to served up "ham" and lots of it. Probably really fun for them to play and the director to watch in the moments on set, hence my earlier reference to "childish play acting" then as a whole I found it disappointing and thought they sold all themselves very short and it came across as an incredibly lazy choice. I haven't read the book and from what others have written this Netflix series didn't do it justice but if I was ever in a position to read it, having watched this, I definitely wouldn't. I'm sure it financially this has been great for the many people involved but to me, productions like this will ultimately become own goals.