When married couple Noah (William Jackson Harper) and Emma (Cristin Milioti) arrive for their one-week Mexican resort vacation in the first episode of Peacock's The Resort, they don't seem particularly happy to be there. They're not very pleased with each other, either, although they're celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary. The Resort provides Noah and Emma with a mystery to solve that brings purpose back into their lives and draws them closer together, but this frustrating, ponderous limited series ultimately isn't really about their relationship.

It's tough to say what The Resort is about at all since it expands in numerous dissatisfying directions over the course of its eight episodes. One character refers to the central mystery as a tapestry that encompasses a range of people's lives, but that interweaving is clumsy and halting as The Resort toggles between timelines before finally awkwardly converging in the finale.

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William Jackson Harper and Cristin Milioti in The Resort.

On an ATV excursion into the jungle, Emma veers off the path and crashes into the underbrush, where she discovers an old, damaged cell phone lying on the ground. She's inexplicably drawn to it but hides the discovery from Noah at first. When Emma installs the SIM card into a new phone, she discovers messages and photos from 2007, when young lovers Sam (Skyler Gisondo) and Violet (Nina Bloomgarden) first met at a nearby resort, the Oceana Vista. After a little research, Emma learns that the Oceana Vista was destroyed by a hurricane in 2007, just a day after Sam and Violet were reported missing. Since the hurricane washed away any potential evidence, the couple was never found, and no one was ever charged with their disappearance or possible murder.

The early episodes of The Resort set the series up as a mildly comedic murder mystery along the lines of The Big Lebowski, with Emma and Noah encountering colorful characters in their efforts to determine what happened to Sam and Violet. Once Emma reveals her efforts to Noah, it seems like this investigation might be just the thing to put the spark back in this couple's faltering marriage.

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As The Resort goes on, however, Emma and Noah's marital issues often fall by the wayside, and the show spends equal time with Sam and Violet in 2007 as they meet coincidentally at the Oceana Vista while on vacation with their respective families. Later episodes take even further detours, focused on eccentric Oceana Vista owner Alex (Ben Sinclair) and disgraced fashion-empire scion Baltasar Frías (Luis Gerardo Méndez), who also fancies himself an amateur detective. What started out as a quirky murder mystery takes a turn into mystical nonsense, focused on the prophecies of reclusive author Ilan Iberra (Luis Guzmán). Abstract images that serve as scene transitions are the only real hints of the supernatural twists to come.

High Maintenance star and co-creator Sinclair, who also directs the first four episodes, is an especially irritating presence as a character whose sole purpose seems to be spouting cryptic gibberish. Alex takes much of the focus for a couple of middle episodes that illuminate his relationship with Baltasar and also serve as the main catalyst for The Resort's shift from grounded mystery into surreal journey. Much of what Emma and Noah investigate in the early episodes turn out to be red herrings, making those episodes seem fairly irrelevant as The Resort heads toward its climax.

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Skyler Gisondo and Debby Ryan in The Resort

Creator Andy Siara dealt with mystical themes in a resort setting with his screenplay for Palm Springs, but The Resort is much less comedic than the time-loop comedy and takes itself much more seriously. Milioti was delightful in Palm Springs, in which she had fantastic chemistry with co-star Andy Samberg. In The Resort, she's dour and abrasive, and she and Harper have very little chemistry, whether their characters are meant to be resentful of each other or rekindling their connection. Gisondo and Bloomgarden fare better as the young people experiencing the rush of new love, but neither couple is particularly compelling to watch. Nick Offerman, playing Violet's dad, barely gets anything to do until the series is nearly over, and his handful of oddball anecdotes are more entertaining than nearly all the rest of the dialogue, even if they don't contribute much to the plot.

There are vague messages here about finding connections and treasuring memories, but they're buried under convoluted plot developments and pretentious pronouncements. Siara overburdens The Resort's characters with tragedy, but the heavy emotions rarely feel earned. If The Resort is meant to be about Emma and Noah's journey toward acceptance and harmony, it doesn't seem to succeed. The set-up promises an intriguing mystery in an exotic, luxurious location, but the end result is disappointing and disjointed.

The first three episodes of The Resort premiere Thursday, July 28 on Peacock, with subsequent episodes debuting each Thursday.