• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 6 hours ago

Long story short, “The Miniature Wife” is the opposite of a tall tale.

It’s more like a small tale -- the story of a woman who achieves new heights, but not in a good way.

In “The Miniature Wife” -- premiering Thursday on Peacock -- the woman, Lindy Littlejohn (Elizabeth Banks, above photo), is reduced from 5’5” (the actual height of Elizabeth Banks) to just 6 inches, all because of a device her husband invented to shrink corn.

The device induces significant shrinkage with a cold, misty spray from what looks like a toy truck. 

Unfortunately, the darn thing accidentally sprays Lindy in Episode One and suddenly, she is reduced to an insignificant half a foot in height.

In “The Miniature Wife,” Lindy is in a troubled marriage with her husband, Les (Matthew Macfadyen), over his ambitions and his serial inability to achieve them.

Lindy is having career problems too. About 20 years earlier, she became a sensation as a young bestselling novelist, but has not written so much as a sentence since then.

In Episode One, we see Les desperately trying to woo an obnoxious tech billionaire to invest in his invention. If Les does not get the money, he will lose his house and his wife.

In fact, desperation emerges as a running theme in this farcical series that Peacock positions as a combination of drama and comedy.

But for the TV Blog, the show is more a combination of overwrought screaming and f-words. 

Peacock also positions the show as a satire on the balance of power in a marriage. In this show, the wife’s change in stature means a reduction in status too -- at least at the outset of her journey through the land of the giants.

Les and Lindy’s last name -- Littlejohn -- obviously has the word “little” in it. And the name of the husband, “Les,” may have symbolic significance too because after he shrinks his wife, the balance of power in their marriage shifts and Les is more.

However, there were no other sly or clever references to the show’s miniaturization storyline in the premiere episode of “The Miniature Wife” that the TV Blog previewed on Tuesday. 

Or to put it another way, there is an entire, lavish Christmas party scene in Episode One, but no evidence of any shrimp.

The TV Blog’s keen interest in “The Miniature Wife” is reflected in the fact that the show has featured in four previous TV Blogs since the show was first announced at the NBCU Upfront last May.

From the outset, the show drew my attention due to its outlandish premise. It is not every day that a TV show comes along about a shrieking, f-word-spewing woman who is shrunken to the approximate height of a cell phone (see above photo).

“The Miniature Wife” starts streaming Thursday (April 9) on Peacock.