Shining Girls

“Shining Girls” is undeniably kooky, but the characters, situations and the city itself are so vividly brought to life that you’ll be dying to figure out what happens next. Just watch it with the lights on.

Because of how convincingly Moss plays Kirby’s dilemma, it’s completely possible to pretend that the trippier genre elements either aren’t there at all or don’t matter. ... Even once you know generally what’s happening, the hows and whys never really materialize, which is something more likely to bother viewers approaching Shining Girls as a thriller than as a character study. It doesn’t help that none of the supporting players around Moss have much to play.

As a critic, I get paid to watch TV shows, which is a lucky thing for Apple TV's new series Shining Girls, because for its first two and a half hours, it's nearly unwatchable, even though it starts with a reasonably enticing premise: a couple of reporters trying to track down a serial killer. Slooooow, confusing and riddled with what-the-hell moments, it moves at the pace of a snail on Quaaludes. And then, the snail gets a shot of crystal meth. Shining Girls is an immensely entertaining show, if you have the time and patience to wait it out.

The villain is both vaguely written and bizarrely benign. It’s not just him, either; the circuitous, tiresomely-stretched-out series fails to establish any real characters beyond its protagonist.

It’s an endless, uninflected mood piece, with a mystery that is so long in unraveling that by the time it’s over, no one cares.