Little Disasters

It’s bingeable but at times feels sloppily plotted. .... Behind it all there are serious points being made about how new mothers can struggle: feeling unable to stop a baby’s incessant crying, trying to manage the demands of older children, dealing with the pressures on a marriage.

Any mother with a newborn will feel like they’ve stepped into their worst nightmare when watching this well-done Paramount+ six part series based on Sarah Vaughan’s novel.

Little Disasters has some annoying “perfect family with secrets” tropes, and uses some irritating narrative devices like foruth-wall-breaking snippets and narration. However, we liked the exploration of this unlikely friendship between a medical skeptic and a doctor, and how their differences end up threatening one of their families.

Although Little Disasters is compelling throughout, the decision to sporadically incorporate a breaking of the fourth wall is pointless in the grand scheme of things. .... These fourth-wall instances play out as redundant and unnecessary dramatic fare.

For at least three of six episodes, the show’s pragmatism when it comes to the main characters’ imperfections is interesting and even entertaining. Still, by the fifth and sixth episodes, which turn several key figures into villainous caricatures and resolve the season-long mystery in cartoonishly unconvincing fashion, I was pondering what, if anything, the show was trying to say. The conclusion I came to was: “Nothing particularly perceptive.”

Sudsy beyond belief, it’s another tale of upper-middle-class dysfunction, and one whose twists and turns are almost as laughable as its climactic value judgments.

There is pain, but no payoff. After walking through a horror-house-of-mirrors with domestic violence lurking in every shadow, “Little Disasters” goes full Scooby-Doo with its ending.