Meghann Fahy and Julianne Moore in Netflix Series

Mortal women tend to get a bum deal in classical mythology; it isn’t uncommon to see them reduced to simple, ill-fated victims or, in more complicated instances, turned into literal monsters for offenses they didn’t commit. It’s almost progressive that princesses and washerwomen alike get crushed by the caprice of misbehaving immortals — but only “almost.”

This is a prism through which one might find some almost admirable subtext in Netflix‘s new five-part limited series, Sirens, but only “almost.” In a show awash in references, thematic coherence and tonal consistency are much harder to come by.

Created by Molly Smith Metzler (Maid), Sirens is an aggressive hodge-podge that tries to blend very broad class satire, very broad melodrama, very broad and formulaic thriller elements and a very broad exercise in affluence porn. There were times, especially in the first few episodes, when I appreciated how brazenly Metzler was tackling so many disparate elements, but by the time those elements failed to cohere as anything other than superficial irony, my attention was mostly being held by a very strong, insufficiently served cast.

The series begins with enigmatic Michaela Kell (Julianne Moore) standing on a cliff’s edge, releasing a falcon into the air, an intro that will cause some Homerically inclined viewers to remember that the Sirens were half-human, half-bird beings who lured sailors into the rocks with their beautiful voices.

“Sirens” is also a code word between sisters Devon (Meghann Fahy) and Simone (Milly Alcock). Why is that their signal for a developing emergency? Literary convenience, mostly.

Devon, whom we first see being released from a Buffalo jail after a rough night, is trying to summon Simone, but Simone has ignored many messages. The source of the emergency? Their father, Bruce (Bill Camp, adding value as always), is suffering from early-onset dementia and his condition is getting worse. Devon gave up on her nonspecific aspirations in order to support Simone after the tragic death of their mother, but she has decided that she’s tired of being the only one helping out.

Simone is off on some Island of Rich People — think Martha’s Vineyard or the Hamptons or the Land of the Lotus Eaters — working as an assistant to Michaela, a socialite, bird protection advocate and the centerpiece of a small cadre of women whose life she’s changed. It’s the end of summer and Michaela, wife to hedge fund billionaire Peter (Kevin Bacon), is preparing for a grand charity gala. Simone’s job is to make life hell for the family’s other servants, including property manager Jose (Felix Solis), head chef Patrice (Lauren Weedman), and Missy (Britne Oldford), who doesn’t appear to have a specific job.

So Devon, without even showering off the hoosegow, hops a bus and a ferry to surprise/collect Simone, only to be shocked to see that her Yale-educated sister has become a new person, with new blonde hair, a new nose and a wealthy, age-inappropriate boyfriend, Glenn Howerton’s Ethan. A recovering alcoholic and not-recovering sex addict, Devon decides that Simone is in a cult and she attempts to uncover several dark mysteries — Peter has a first wife who disappeared — and extricate her sister.

Beyond the title, references to mythology are littered throughout Sirens, right down to the house’s virtual assistant, Zeus. The frequency with which characters refer to people as “monsters,” or reflect on people getting dashed against the rocks at the base of Michaela’s appropriately named Cliff House, is exhausting. There is, throughout, a sense that everything that happens on this island is out of a fairy tale or possibly a nightmare, underlined in the opening episodes by director Nicole Kassell, who bathes Moore in a perpetually gauzy glow and leaves Fahy in the hardest and harshest lighting imaginable (in part so that when Devon gets a Michaela-sponsored makeover, we’ll be shocked that Meghann Fahy looks like Meghann Fahy).

It’s a visual conceit that fizzles or wanes as the show goes along (even Michael Abels’ score goes from dreamy to forgettable), partially by intent — the dividing line between fantastical and real ceases to be clear — and partially because nobody following Kassell in the director’s chair is as devoted to finding the outsized fancy of Metzler’s story, based on her play Elemeno Pea.

There has been a recent run of shows that have tried to stay grounded in the real world while being infiltrated by the fantastical, the folkloric and the Biblical — see also Apple’s The Changeling and Government Cheese. It’s an approach I find interesting in concept, but only rarely successful in execution; dabbling in whimsy without committing to a consistent aesthetic is a surefire way to make your show feel half-baked. Many aspects of Sirens feel half-baked.

I have not, for example, properly illustrated that Sirens really is, at many of its more successful points, a comedy. This is a story in which the estrangement between a husband and wife is laid bare with the exaggerated declaration, “Don’t you care about raptor conservation anymore?”. It’s a story in which Michaela is frequently accompanied by a trio of acolytes, two of whom speak in unison (and sometimes sing “WAP” together). It’s a story in which Devon briefly finds herself in the drunk tank with an enthusiastic former NXIVM member ready to dish. And don’t get me started on Howerton’s outfits.

If you don’t calibrate tragic and satirical properly, it becomes a slog. Much of Sirens is a slog, despite a reasonably efficient five-hour running time that left me simultaneously relieved and thinking almost everything here would have played better as a 90-minute play without intermission.

Metzler did a wonderful job blending misery and mirth in Maid, a series that was an often-downbeat class critique in which bursts of satire worked as a release valve. Here, it’s just hollow caricature on top of a mystery that never becomes close to involving on any emotional level. I think a lot of the class critique here would have played more substantively if Sirens were interested in giving a full upstairs/downstairs perspective. But as gamely as capable supporting players like Solis, Oldford and Weedman try, only Solis comes close to having a fully developed character.

The actor who best embodies the tonal balance the show aspires to is Fahy, who has previously proven her affluence-porn mettle in the second season of The White Lotus, in which she was a standout; and in Netflix’s The Perfect Couple, which is not to be confused with Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers, a different piece of affluence porn featuring the genre’s godmother, Nicole Kidman. That show happens to be returning for a second season this week — a proximity that does no favors to either Nine Perfect Strangers or Sirens, especially since Kidman absolutely could have played Julianne Moore’s role here and, in fact, Moore may just be playing Kidman’s eerily New Age-y cult leader with a different name. None of this has anything to do with how great Fahy is, giving expertly wry line-readings and selling empathy for a character whose reliably bad decisions don’t always feel clearly motivated.

Fahy has no chemistry with either of her hastily sketched love interests — Trevor Salter’s good-natured Morgan and Josh Segarra’s deservedly exasperated Ray — but the sisterly animosity between Devon and Simone feels real. As she did in House of the Dragon, Alcock pivots smoothly between luminous and wallflower, befitting a young woman who sacrificed her own identity for borrowed glamour. Should we come away from Sirens with any idea of Simone’s real personality? It wouldn’t have hurt, but I understand why it’s absent.

Sirens is smartest when paralleling the entitlement of 21st century American wealth with Ancient Greek divinity, skewering the insularity and entitlement of these modern plutocrats who throw galas to honor themselves and to torment or seduce the mortals who are their employees and playthings. Our hollow worship of “cool” billionaires is fleshed out in Bacon’s performance as a magnate who sometimes smokes weed or invites the help to join him for clam chowder, without ever relinquishing his aloof chill.

If you want a show that embraces this contemporary allegory more thoroughly, you may want to seek out the imperfect but intriguing Kaos, which Netflix ordered, barely promoted and then hastily canceled. At least Sirens is close-ended.