Bret Easton Ellis has a distinct style. That’s always been a part of his appeal. You can hear a passage from Less Than Zero, American Psycho, or Lunar Park and recognize the same pen behind them even if you couldn’t identify the author by name. In the new series The Shards, based on his novel of the same name, Igby Rigney playing “Bret Easton Ellis” unspools an impressive bit of narration that immediately signals Ellis’s involvement. Yes, even more than the character’s name. And then it keeps going. And going. By that first episode’s end, viewers have listened to Rigney describe things happening exactly as they do on-screen (“He entered the theatre” soundtracking a scene where a man enters a theatre, for instance), numerous brands, and countless 80s pop culture signifiers. Somewhere along the way, it rushed past “signature style” directly into parody.

As the season goes on, Ellis, his co-creator Ryan Murphy, and the rest of the team wrestle that over-narration impulse into submission. Alas, the damage has already been done. In many ways, The Shards never escaped that opening verbal avalanche of a self-conscious monologue. It’s an introduction doubling as a eulogy, burying the show as it begins.

Eulogy is fitting, as this meta-exercise is obsessed with death. In 1981 Los Angeles, Bret and his friends are preparing for their Senior year of high school, heads filled with thoughts of “the best year ever.” Seeking to ruin that possibility for them is a serial killer who prank calls him teen victims for days before kidnapping. Then, a few days later, he returns them as mutilated art projects. There’s also newcomer Robert Mallory (Homer Gere), a kid from the even better side of the tracks. Although Bret is attracted to Robert at first glance, he grows to quickly dislike the transfer student. Then dislike turns to conviction that Robert and the serial killer are one and the same.

If the narration was Ellis’s most obvious sin on this project, Murphy is certainly plotting. Like Murphy’s recent The Beauty, The Shards somehow moves fast while stubbornly refusing to wrap up plotlines. There’s no reason for this show not to be a limited series as it hit nearly every big beat from the book besides its resolution. With this “hurry up and wait for season 2” approach, it’s all incident, no payoff.

The plot may not work, seemingly on purpose, but the actors are a different story. Rigney surprised me as Bret. Given Ellis’s reputation, one would expect the fictional version of his teenage self would be cynical to the point of nihilism. All glib, no good, if you will. But while Rigney invests Bret with a fairly nasty streak, there’s also a real humanity to him. It’s not quite idealistic or naïve, but Bret consistently comes across as the least selfish or self-involved member of his circle.

Gere’s Robert, on the other hand, is all menace and flippant cruelty. I’m fine with a lead character I find awful, but the show never convinces the audience why anyone IN the story would like Robert. Ellis has made a career out of writing reprehensible characters who are nonetheless difficult to resist. The Shards, however, never properly demonstrates what makes Robert attractive and, thus, dangerous. His oily charm barely rises above that of a street-level hustler.

The rest of the young cast, on first blush, seems like it might be young and beautiful, but bland ala Verhoeven’s casting in Starship Troopers. Thankfully, that mostly proves an inaccurate assumption. Singer Hayes Warner as the closeted Bret’s wounded popular Queen B girlfriend Debbie Schaffer and Ivy Wolk in her first unironic dramatic role are particular standouts. Kaia Gerber comes closest to what I feared, but her turn as Susan Reynolds, the good girl who never loses, doesn’t really pull for much. Adults like Wes Bentley and Evan Rachel Wood as Debbie’s deeply unhappy and self-involved parents are good enough that I wished more of the show was about them.

Decent performances aside, it doesn’t take long for the show to become a repetitive loop of social gatherings, threatening phone calls, and rising suspicion. The show occasionally feints toward Hannibal-like displays of murder as art, but it never comes close to the same league. And the killer’s actions are relatively limited, with “big” moments few and far between. The result is that the show feels like an overlong exercise in its creators’ self-indulgence. While capturing their worst tendencies, it rarely touches their best, like Murphy’s giddy excessiveness and Ellis’s scathing insights. With their track record, nothing they make should be dull. Gross, mean, and in love with itself? Sure. But not dull. And yet, here is The Shards, being exactly that.

The Shards has a mirror, rolled up twenty, and razor blade waiting for you on FX starting August 5.

The Shards Trailer: