Okay, here is my generalized review of The Miniature Wife, Season 1.
(caution, potential spoilers and poor quality screen caps ahead!)
(This turned out to be more long-winded than anticipated, so I am posting it separately rather than congesting the discussion threads with it.)
Time after time over the years, I have anticipated an upcoming film or television episode in which it was widely known that shrinking or some other extreme size differential would be an integral element of the plot. More often than not, my eagerness was met with disappointment, due to the lack of extensive interaction between size differentiated characters.
In the case of The Miniature Wife, while certain disappointments persisted, the viewer is eventually rewarded with some significant interactions, largely within the back half of the 10 episode stretch. This does not necessarily reflect a failure on the part of the show, because the longer one goes without it, the more the tension of anticipation grows, and it is a sweet tension.
We are eventually given direct interactions in the M/f, M/m, and F/f categories, in addition to on-screen visuals of F/m, M/mf and F/mf sequences with no actual contact.
While all of these instances were well worth waiting for, the showrunners cut a lot of corners which could have really enhanced the experience for size-change enthusiasts. As one example of this recurring shortcoming, no pun intended, there are several scenes when it is implied that a shrunken person or persons could have been either hostilely captured, or consensually picked up and carried from one place to another by a "giant," so to speak, particularly with the character of the adult daughter. For whatever reason, however, probably involving production budget issues, we do not get to see these play out on screen.
The plot itself is interesting enough, with some significant holes, most egregious of which is the fact that this genius scientist husband is remarkably unable to effectively control and contain a 6-inch tall woman who has no superior technology to what he has access to, no super strength, no indestructibility, and no outside aid to speak of, forcing him to set clumsy elaborate traps and flood his bedroom to "defend himself" against her and her arsenal of matchsticks and thumbtacks.
On the positive side, the special effects are basically seamless and proportional, and the use of extreme camera angles and forced perspective are very effective at creating the unusual viewpoints of the shrunken persons and the normal people around them. Props and sets for the miniaturized characters are realistic and clever. The literal impact of giant voices on the tiny people was particularly well done.
The inclusion of a nerdy but hot villainess in the story adds an excitingly random element to an otherwise basic cast of characters who spend far too much time in aimless dialogue, tedious side plots, and frustratingly overindulged exposition in place of the underutilized potential for interactions previously alluded to. There is even an episode that is in its entirety, a flashback with no size differential content whatsoever. (Some might say that's 10% of a promising season washed straight down the drain.)
As a source for size differential material, I give the show a B+. Rated strictly as a television show, I give it a C-, mainly because many of the character actions and reactions (and lack of action) to the shrinking phenomenon are cartoonish and unrealistic within the universe of the show which makes the all-important suspension of disbelief more difficult than it needs to be.
I would say it is definitely not worth going out and subscribing to Peacock solely for the purpose of seeing it, but making an effort to borrow someone's logins for it would certainly be justified.
Anyway, my two cents.
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