Murder House Flip - Season 1

A weak addition to the home-renovation genre, here with an expert team (Mikel Welch and Joelle Uzyel) working to fix up houses that, yes, were once the scene of horrific murders. So basically your average true-crime show meets HGTV.

I love the premise of home renovation experts turning their attention to houses in which famous murders took place, but stars Mikel Welch and Joelle Uzyel lack the personality to make even short episodes engaging.

The strangest thing about this truly chaotic and dark idea for a series is just how meek it is in practice.

It's macabre and, at times, almost seems to mock HGTV's huge swath of programming. But the result of the first makeover (which takes three episodes) is breathtaking.

Fans of that HGTV will enjoy this as it's more of the same, albeit with a grim undertone, and the results are as expected with happy couples enjoying new living spaces.

Everyone here is aware of how goddamn bizarre this all is, and that goes a long way.

An ingenious combination of two addictive genres - true crime and home renovation - Murder House Flip is one of those ideas that seems so obviously interesting, it's surprising it took someone this long to invent it.

Murder House Flip immediately makes Flipped irrelevant by being both funnier and a better send-up of the home-improvement show format, chiefly by sticking to its premise and taking it to its furthest conclusion.

Murder House Flip is half of a good idea and one that really needs to get some better designers whose ideas may be more exciting to watch. Or, they need to do a better job of integrating the first and second halves of each episode.

While the show is clearly intended to be slightly tasteless and provocative, it is deafness to its own metaphor that makes Murder House Flip so very American.

Sure, the bodies in the backyard may be long gone, but the outdated fixtures and appliances remain. Watch these in-over-their-heads heroes take projects from, and I quote, "morbid to marvelous."

The sheer absurdity still threatens to overwhelm, at least until the autopilot takes over and everyone starts talking about the feng shui of patio furniture.