The Horror of Dolores Roach

One season of Dolores' tale makes for a satisfying meal, and I fear a second helping might turn out to be empty calories. But maybe a little overindulgence is warranted when the recipe is so tasty.

The series clearly has fun playing with that line, putting normality and extremity in conversation and asking the audience to root both for and against its leads. A playful show about a serial killer, "The Horror of Dolores Roach" gets its frights by not taking itself too seriously.

The show makes perfectly bite-sized digs at bureaucratic establishments that are far more filling than empty wisdom. There’s no one better than Machado to make those points.

That The Horror of Dolores Roach manages to be just cheeky enough to overcome its many flaws is a testament to Machado’s presence — she helps to turn a television meal that doesn’t always go down as easy as one would hope into one that has a bit more meat on its bones.

Even in short, half-hour-ish bursts, the relentless archness and escalations start to chafe, but Machado is great (“I don’t wanna be a serial killer”), and there’s a winning trippy brio to it all.

If only The Horror of Dolores Roach possessed enough magic to shape its mix of dark comedy and horror into something that felt wholly worthy of the commitment, instead of cooking up a show that falls short of the killer concept that it could have been.

Any Sweeney Todd retelling turns on the question of why the killer kills. The Horror of Dolores Roach never works that out, so it’s left aimlessly sliding around in its own sloppy mess.