Chaos d'anthologie: Les mamans détectives

We didn't want to do reality TV, but....

This was painful; honestly, this is one of the most awful things I've seen in quite a while. I watched it out of curiosity. I'll put it out there that I detest reality TV, especially bilge like the Kardashians. All I saw in sorry was egotists, one after the other, the kind of people that talk at you and have only their own selfish interests at heart.

Am I just a grumpy old Brit? Would anyone genuinely want to watch a show called PI Moms? I should imagine that trying to tickle the belly of an oceanic whitetip would be a more pleasurable experience.

Undercover Carl? Was he quite as bashful and dumb as he made out to be? I think he seemed to be the smartest one of the lot. Regarding the missing girl, nobody was interested in her; they were more concerned about their careers and the fact that Carl, who had actually made something of a career for himself, found her. Come on, what the actual?

1/10.

A bunch of fame seeking troglodytes. People in this show are what's wrong with this world. What a pile of utter rubbish. All these so called PI moms looking for a missing girl to "save the show" without giving a hoot about the wellbeing of the girl they looked for just sums up the absolutely horrible and vile human beings they are. The whole show is a few idiots screwing each other over and trying to make a quick buck out of other people's misery.

I did really enjoy all of the other train wrecks but this just demonstrated that the producers were clutching at straws by taking this on. The storyline and the characters are horrendous.

"Trainwreck: P. I. Moms" arrives on the scene with a title that promises chaos and delivers... well, mostly just a mess. What could have been a genuinely entertaining or even insightful look into amateur sleuthing by suburban parents quickly devolves into a parade of reality TV clichés, leaving viewers less amused and more bewildered.

The fundamental premise, while quirky, is stretched thin to the point of transparency. The "investigations" often feel contrived, lacking any real stakes or genuine mystery. It's as if the producers handed the "moms" a list of pre-determined scenarios, then filmed their awkward attempts to "solve" them. The result is a series of forced encounters and manufactured drama that fails to convince even the most forgiving viewer. The "P. I." aspect is largely superficial, with little to no actual detective work shown. Instead, we get a lot of gossiping, ill-advised stakeouts, and "aha!" moments that feel utterly unearned.

Character development is, predictably, sacrificed at the altar of caricature. Each "mom" is reduced to a single, exaggerated personality trait - the overbearing one, the ditzy one, the perpetually exasperated one. This makes it impossible to connect with any of them on a meaningful level, and their interactions often feel less like genuine relationships and more like actors performing for the camera. The "trainwreck" element, rather than being an organic byproduct of their amateur efforts, feels like a deliberate, heavy-handed attempt to generate conflict and low-stakes drama, often at the expense of any potential humor or authenticity.

Furthermore, the production values are exactly what you'd expect from a show leaning heavily into its "trainwreck" moniker. The editing is choppy, the music is generic, and the overall aesthetic screams "budget reality TV." While this might be an intentional choice to lean into the "amateur" feel, it ultimately contributes to the sense that the show isn't taking itself, or its audience, seriously.

In the end, "Trainwreck: P. I. Moms" is a show that lives up to only half of its title - the "trainwreck" part. It's a frustrating watch that squanders a potentially fun premise on tired tropes and a lack of genuine substance. If you're looking for compelling mysteries or relatable characters, you'd be better off looking elsewhere.

Overall, I like the "Trainwreck" concept. The Woodstock 99 episode was particularly enlightening, as I remember when it happened. The show served to add dimensions to a complex story and the personalities involved.

PI Moms is a different animal entirely. While I'm not a fan of reality TV generally, I do think they could've made PI Moms a bit more engaging. There's an inherent contradiction between the actual messy work of crime-solving and the contrived antics of reality stars, something which the show could've explored. How did the PIs plan to reconcile their stated goals with the results of a successful show, namely that they'd lose their privacy and ability to do actual investigations? Doesn't a successful PI have to have a certain amount of anonymity?

This guy Carl comes off as an opportunist, but frankly, everyone in this show does, so it's not really a critique. Moreover, if caught up inadvertently in drug dealing, most rational people would cooperate with the police as he did.

As a show, PI Moms is very disjointed and misses the opportunity to tell a compelling story. Netflix will want to step it up for the Trainwreck series to continue.

Their Woodstock series was pretty great - as a Brit barely into adolescence when Woodstock '99 happened, I found it fascinating, intelligently done and powerfully objective. When I saw they were spinning off into a series, I was eager and hungry for more - finally, a production banner for magazine-documentaries with some real quality behind it. Something to look forward to.

Man, how wrong I was.

Astroworld was decent, for the same reasons as above really - it's a story I didn't know. Not as gripping or as detailed as ...Woodstock '99, but still interesting and entertaining. The Toronto mayor one wasn't anywhere near detailed enough - still a great story but given the tragic end he met, frustratingly superficial.

Since then, they've ALL been trash - entertaining, but absolute trash. A real departure from the brutal brilliance of their debut - and I didn't think they could get more cloying and heavy-handed than the balloon boy episode. Then they dropped PI moms.

What a load of garbage. It felt more like a propaganda piece than a documentary, like who is this for?! It wasn't remotely an interesting enough story - shock horror! Fame-hungry actor treads on others to get ahead! Not worthy of an episode of Dateline, let alone a Netflix documentary.

Don't waste your time.