‘Ratched’ flies out of ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’ but not much further

“I wish that I could have met Mildred Ratched before the world got to her.”

These are the words of Gwendolyn Briggs (Cynthia Nixon), paramour of the title character (Sarah Paulson) of Netflix’s “Ratched.” They also are a heck of a thing for somebody to say six episodes into an eightepisode season. After all, showing us what warped a young psychiatric nurse into the tyrannical antagonist of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is exactly what this series, which premiered on Friday, was supposed to have been doing.

“Ratched” tries, for a while, and it looks awfully good doing it, but it gets waylaid in spectacle and lurid melodrama. What starts as a psychological portrait becomes a Jackson Pollock spatter pattern of bloodletting and revenge tragedy. One plot flies east, another flies west; chaos and clutter claim much of the rest.

The premise is straightforward: As Mildred says of one of her early patients — a multiple murderer, Edmund Tolleson (Finn Wittrock), in whom she takes an interest — “He wasn’t born a monster. Somebody turned him into one.”

This drama promises to show who or what Frankensteined her into the asylum authoritarian of Ken Kesey’s novel and Milos Forman’s film. In many ways, though, Paulson’s Mildred Ratched starts off as already a version of the character made famous by Louise Fletcher: quieter and more guarded, but manipulative and starchily terrifying.

In 1947, she arrives at a psychiatric hospital in Northern California for a job interview she was not invited to. After coercing the ambitious, overstressed Dr. Richard Hanover (Jon Jon Briones) into hiring her, she sets out to supplant the stern head nurse, Betsy Bucket (Judy Davis) — Nurse Ratched’s Nurse Ratched — and intercedes for Edmund, who is marked for a death sentence. But her motives prove deceptive, and her methods ruthless.

“Ratched” starts off with promise, a sort of “Better Call Saul” meets “Bates Motel” by way of “American Horror Story.” It’s a delight watching Paulson and Davis sharpen the blades of their controlling characters against each other.

The costuming and set design are a feast, too, with the lush midcentury appointments — Dr. Hanover’s office alone could be in a museum of design — belying the barbarism of the hospital’s “enlightened” treatments.

“Ratched” was created by Evan Romansky and is produced by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, as part of Murphy’s expanding Netflix empire. It share similarities with Murphy’s anthology “Horror Story.” Superficially, it recalls that series’ best season, “Asylum,” which also starred Paulson and wrung macabre terror from mid-20thcentury psychiatric treatments. But as a story, it’s more like that show’s weaker seasons, in which the multiplying shock twists drown out the themes.

If a stylish thrill ride is what you want, “Ratched” might do the job. But if you’re actually looking for what “Ratched” promises, a nuanced explanation of a woman who has been caricatured as a demon, you might find yourself wishing that you could have met Mildred Ratched before “Ratched” got to her.