Boo, Bitch, a sometimes sharp yet mostly uneven eight-part limited series from Netflix, appeals to a beloved and oft under-rated tradition: the sitcom in which supernatural elements (time travel, foresight, magic powers) underscore the trials of being a teenage girl. Lana Condor’s Erika Vu, a shy, studious senior rendered a ghost after getting smushed by a moose on the night of her first high school party, takes after playfully occult protagonists in irreverent shows such as Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Wizards of Waverly Place, That’s So Raven and, more seriously and successfully, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The show’s candy-colored aesthetic and caffeinated energy reminds me of Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101; the costumes look like a gleefully unhinged take on mid-aughts TV teen fashion.
It’s all light and more fun than you might expect, until it isn’t. Created by Tim Schauer, Kuba Soltysiak, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Erin Ehrlich and Awkward’s Lauren Iungerich, Boo, Bitch straddles the fine line between campy and hokey, deliciously ridiculous and dumb, cheeky and cringe before the second half derails into borderline unwatchable, cheap nonsense. (The title is a cute-ish wink until it becomes an overused refrain in the final episodes.) That Boo, Bitch holds the center at all for five 25-minute episodes is largely thanks to the commitment of Condor, Netflix’s immensely likable homegrown star of To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, and Zoe Margaret Colletti as her kooky, loyal best friend Gia.
