Throughout the first two seasons of Crazy Ex Girlfriend, a fundamental shift in the main premise is brewing. Season Three is when that shift is complete: what was once the lighthearted love story of Rebecca Bunch and Josh Chan is now the more serious love story of Rebecca Bunch and her own mind.
The shift is not always done gracefully and seamlessly. After Josh does the dramatic wedding altar breakup thing, Rebecca’s once again left in the position of the ‘crazy ex-girlfriend’. But this time, as the plot begins to slow down to fully take in her devastation, the atmosphere becomes sinister rather than silly.
During this season, Rebecca is refocused on her relationship with herself by necessity. The storylines left to the other characters can often be too filler-y. (Like Paula randomly going to visit her dad, the Jeff Channington thing, Josh’s priest school misadventures and Nathaniel going to the zoo). A lot of these stories I found were neither funny or compelling enough to get excited about their development - it felt honestly more like they were just there to give other characters something to do during Rebecca’s more introspective phases
As the part of the show that becomes more pointed and explicit in its focus on Rebecca’s mental health battles, the plot starts to more realistically mirror how a real person deals with mental illness - not just personality disorders, but also things like addiction, anxiety and depression. This means that Rebecca’s efforts to build more independence, break out of negative mental spirals and curb her impulsive tendencies don’t progress in a tidy linear curve upwards. There is a lot of ‘two steps forwards one step backwards’ going on in this season. I can appreciate the faithfulness and authenticity of this while also becoming really frustrated with how the plot seems to stall a lot.
Rebecca goes from cheerfully indulging her crazy antics to now seriously confronting her troubles. Which can be taxing on the funny side of the show - especially when the storylines of the other characters feel like fillery bits tossed in. (It turns out that the deep underlying reason for Paula being so obsessive about helping Rebecca reunite with Josh in Season 1 was because way back in the day she was with a guy called Jeff Channington who she never really got over - he was “her Josh Chan”. This was just cringy).
This is also the season that you probably wouldn’t be able to get through if you didn’t have the investment in the characters built up from watching the other two seasons. The first 2 seasons I wholeheartedly recommend. The shift in focus that we see in Season 3 has been foreshadowed from very early on in the show. Song lyrics like “you ruined everything, you stupid bitch”, “she’s so broken inside” and “love makes you crazy therefore you can’t call her crazy” make it increasingly clear that many of the musical numbers are Rebecca’s inner dialogue with herself, and her attempts to delay the internal reckoning are becoming increasingly both more frantic and more futile. Season 3 is what happens during and after that reckoning - it’s got a lot of false starts and stalls, and it can feel unfocused to the external observer. But if they went with the “smooth road to recovery” storyline, they would lose a lot of the authenticity.
Also, as with the Season One review, there will probably be spoilers since this is the kind of show that’s hard to explore without giving away plot points
The transition from Season One to Season Two of Crazy Ex Girlfriend is definitely the most continual. (Later on, the themes and scope start to diverge more dramatically). The tone is still largely light, even as it holds a harsh mirror up to many of the romantic ideals we grow up with. Throughout thirteen episodes, Rebecca Bunch struggles to reconcile the ideals she holds for herself with the frenetic and self-destructive relationships she keeps ending up in. To music. (It’s also a lot funnier than I’m making it sound right now).
Rebecca Bunch is a character that would be frustrating to watch if she wasn’t so funny. She’s a lot of things that women aren’t meant to be - she can be intense, selfish and attention-seeking. She demands a lot of her loved ones. She also struggles with mental instability.
You know that cool girl thing where women feel pressure to look perfect but also look like they woke up looking that perfect and did not at all do anything as frivolous and feminine and inaccessible-to-men as applying makeup? And be a perfect size 0 with no cellulite but also be down for fast food and never worry about diets? The knowledge that the feminine perfection (or, to be honest, even ‘decent looking’) takes conscious effort and upkeep interrupts the cool girl fantasy and WE CAN’T HAVE THAT.
You know that whole thing?
That whole thing that’s so brilliantly represented by the Sexy Getting Ready Song?
Rebecca Bunch is decidedly and unabashedly not that. (She is after all, the crazy ex girlfriend!). She demands attention. Her feelings are big and scary and messy. She has a vivid and turbulent fantasy life driven by intense emotions represented in song.
But, interestingly enough, Rebecca’s intensity is not what’s wrong with her - in fact, it’s quite well-demonstrated that it’s probably always going to be a part of who she is. On the other hand, the pressure to be the effortless cool girl with no messy emotions dropping in and out of the male protagonist’s life at his own convenience is a major stressor on Rebecca’s life this season. Rebecca doesn’t need to abandon her needs and emotions - rather, she needs to stop for a moment, honor them, and listen to what they’re trying to say to her and do for her.
We also see how Rebecca’s frenetic neediness impacts her platonic friendships. Paula gets drawn into so many of her crazy plans that they basically never get any work done. She starts seeing Valencia and Heather as her #squad with musical #squadgoals. (Then tries to integrate Paula into the squad to disastrous results). The portrayal of these friendships is made all the richer by being so three-dimensional. There is a lot of love and support in Rebecca’s friendship with Paula. Way back in Season One she’s definitely in turns jealous of and sexually attracted to Valencia. Rebecca needs her friends, they need her - and not all of this need is a bad thing! That’s what makes it so difficult for them to mediate their needs in a healthy way.
With this broadening in character focus, other characters get more screen time and storylines during this season. Some time is devoted to Josh’s best friend and Rebecca’s ex-boyfriend Greg (yeah it’s that kind of show) trying to manage his alcoholism and Paula pursuing a career change from paralegal to lawyer (is that considered a career change? Or just like a career shift?). Some of this works, but some of it can feel a but stale or forced in. I don’t find all these storylines all that compelling. This show starts out as “Josh’s crazy ex-girlfriend stalking him and scheming to win him back” and by this point has transformed into something quite different - but often these plotlines in the shifting focus aren’t so funny or subversive.
If you liked Season One, there is a good chance you’ll like Season Two. Three is where things start to change more notably in tone. This is clearly no longer the “Rebecca trying to win back Josh in West Covina” show - it’s significantly messier and broader in scope- but it is has the same momentum and humour and the songs are just as good.
I've often thought that the unsolved murder cold case documentaries are much more of an acquired taste than those about solved murders.
A solved murder is so much easier to construct a gripping narrative around than an unsolved murder. You have the mystery, you have the climax, and then you have the revelation and the answers. When all is said and done, you know who's the real bad guy and who was unjustly dragged through the mud.
With an unsolved case like that of Keli Lane, there are no answers and you are left still wondering: was she guilty of murder or was she a victim? There is very little evidence, nor is there much in the way of viable leads, which is what makes Lane's 18-year prison sentence so remarkable and controversial.
I'd describe 'Exposed' as more of a refreshing documentary than an exceptional one. The structure and pacing is efficient enough but not Forensic Files level tightness. The interviews range from 'important situating information' to 'actually quite chilling' - but there's never any big 'whoa' moment. The general circumstances of the suspected murder are outlined and analysed but no one theory is committed to. And on top of all that, it doesn't lead to a definite conclusion. This might make Exposed sound average and not worth committing three hours to, but I've actually found it to be one of the most refreshing and compelling examples of this genre for the following reasons:
First and foremost, the facts of the case are very, very weird: . Keli Lane is an Australian water polo player born in 1975 in Sydney. By 2001, she had been pregnant six times - but only ended up keeping one baby. She had one early abortion, one later abortion, placed two babies into adoptions - and the other one was Tegan Lane. Tegan Lane was born on September 12 1996 in Auburn Hospital, Sydney. Two days later, Keli left the hospital with her. What happened next is where the mystery comes in.
Keli maintains that she went to the hospital’s car park and gave Tegan to Andrew Norris (or Morris) - who she said is Tegan’s father - and then never heard anything from Andrew again.
Police started to suspect Keli had killed Tegan when she had her next child in 1999 - she claimed that this was her first child, and when it turned out that she’d actually left the hospital with Tegan, at which point Tegan vanished without a trace. Despite an extensive search, Andrew Norris was never found, nor was Tegan. And despite the frustrating lack of information, Keli ended up being found guilty of murder in 2011 - 14 years later.
It’s truly bizarre how Keli managed to hide five pregnancies while playing water polo. The only comparable case I can think of is Brooke Skylar Richardson - another young woman, this time in Ohio, who never told anyone she was pregnant. Then when the baby was stillborn she buried it in the garden, still without telling anyone. Despite suspicions of foul play, she ended up being found innocent in 2018.
Directed with a light touch: Exposed is devoid of sensationalism and politicism. There’s the aim of getting to the truth of what happened to Tegan, but the information is as frustratingly limited as ever. Interviews are conducted with people Keli knew - all of which adamantly claim she wouldn’t have been capable of murder.
I’d describe the interviews as restrained and tasteful. There isn’t any one person who really has the one missing puzzle piece that puts everything together, and no one is being accused of anything. This careful approach yields some really moving results that feel all the more authentic for being revealed in a nonthreatening conversation-based interview. Sharon Rhodes, the detective who led the investigation into Tegan’s disappearance, gets very candid about how this case has haunted her - both Tegan’s disappearance itself, and the limited evidence on which Keli was imprisoned. Keli Lane herself speaks about her experience being raped at the age of fifteen and how that unresolved trauma could have been affecting her mental stability and playing into her self-sabotaging decisions.
Thankfully, Exposure also completely sidesteps any hints of “What kind of woman would have an abortion at 20 weeks? What kind of Terrible Mother would place a newborn baby for adoption and then never want any followup information?” There’s clearly something going on with these repeated pregnancies, but it wouldn’t be ‘being an evil cold-blooded killer’. We never really get a detailed exploration of what was going on both consciously and subconsciously with Keli when she was going through repeated hidden pregnancies while playing water polo (denial? A quasi-addictive situation?), but that’s probably the nature of patient confidentiality.
Effective visuals: The visual timeline goes a long way to reinforce in the viewer’s mind the sequence of events. It’s important to have a clear understanding of what happened when with this sort of case. Having a repeated timeline motif interspersed between interview footage was a good move.
Overall: 7.8/10. Perhaps not the most satisfying or flashy true crime documentary series - but it’s neutrally and fairly presented without ever being dry. Both the unusual nature of the case and the taste with which the directors handle it make Exposed very distinct from a lot of the true crime genre.
(I had a LOT to say about this show so I’m splitting it into seasons)
Crazy Ex Girlfriend is a musical TV series that follows a mercurial lawyer’s journey towards managing her own mental health and developing more functional attachments to others. Rebecca Bunch impulsively moves to West Covina after finding out that ex-boyfriend Josh Chan is now living there, under the impression that if she can win him back, she will find true happiness.
Is this kind of crazy? Yes
But is it the kind of thing that often shows up in romance movies where everyone lives happily ever after? Also yes.
This is what makes this show so enjoyably subversive. So many of the things that could have been played off as harmless zany fun in a 2000s love story (trying to stalk a guy who’s already with someone else because you KNOW he should really be with you! Staging a fake break-in at your house to get him to come and see you! Trying to engineer other people’s relationships!) would indicate mental instability at the very least.
Crazy Ex Girlfriend goes on to demonstrate how many of our ideals like The One and Happily Ever After actually give romantic love a job it can never really do, and can even lead people into unhealthy attachment patterns. You can’t expect to meet someone who is 100% perfect for you, who will solve all your problems and you’ll always be happy with them, but that is what Disney told us in the 90s! So the questions is posed: is Rebecca really crazy or has she just watched too many movies? What can we fairly expect out of our interpersonal relationships with others? How do we navigate the gulfs between ideals and reality with our family, friendships and romantic partners? And it’s ALL SET TO MUSIC. OFTEN REALLY GOOD MUSIC.
Now, I know a lot of people categorically do not like musicals. ”But people don’t just get up and start singing and dancing in real life!” they cry.
Well, first of all, yes sometimes it does happen in real life even if only a bit!
Second of all, there’s plenty of nonrealism in science fiction, historical fiction, comedy, horror, police dramas, you name it and there is unrealistic stuff going on. Look at all the people in historical dramas with perfect teeth, no armpit hair and no smallpox scars! Look at how during that one episode of The IT Crowd they basically cancel all work to do a sexy calendar photoshoot in the office! Look how whenever someone calls a landline, the person picking up is the person they wanted to talk to! No “hey I gotta speak to the other person in your house” moment. No one has to run to the toilet. And do NOT get me started on hospital dramas like Shortland Street. (Spoiler: it bears very little resemblance to anything that happens in a real hospital)
Thirdly, and probably most importantly: the musical genre is the perfect format to tell this story. A lot of the songs are really fun and catchy. They also frequently serve the vital purpose of reflecting a character’s inner dialogue. Given that mental health becomes so important to this show, this is a brilliant move.
Perhaps the opening theme songs highlight this the most cleanly. In Season One’s opening, disembodied voices cheerily sing, “She’s the crazy ex-girlfriend! She’s so broken insiiiide”. The crazy ex-girlfriend is another regular fixture of romantic storylines: lurking in the shadows, plotting her revenge, a caricature of the woman scorned. But rarely does a protagonist experience herself as a crazy ex-girlfriend. She’s usually just there to threaten someone else’s happily ever after.
These mocking “she’s the crazy ex girlfriend!” voices start up just after Rebecca explains her situation: she was unhappy in New York, moved to West Covina which happens to be where her ex Josh Chan lives but no of course she didn’t follow him or anything!
As the series unfolds and gets both crazier and more serious, the audience gradually comes to realise that the whole theme song is really Rebecca speaking to herself. On the surface, she’s got her cover story that she’s just moving to West Covina for a new job and this decision has absolutely nothing to do with Josh Chan who just coincidentally happens to live there. But of course, she knows this isn’t the truth and she knows she’s really stalking him, despite frequent denials (”That would be crazy, and I am not crazy”). The other voices are coming from her own mind, trying to make her confront her crazy tendencies but not really knowing how best to go about it. Rebecca’s argumentative dialogue with these voices (”What? No, that’s a sexist term! The situation’s a lot more nuanced than that!”) becomes a really neat hint showing that Rebecca’s relationship with herself is the one she most needs to repair, and ultimately the one that becomes the main focal point.
Overall: 10/10, would recommend this first season. Very smart, very funny, and SONGS.
American Murder: The Family Next Door recounts the Watts family murders through a combination of home videos, text messages, social media posts, and eventually police interview footage, as well as news broadcasts about the murders. Because a lot of this content wasn’t originally produced with an eye towards a narrative documentary exploring a murder case, documentaries like this often run the risk of dragging a bit and losing momentum. Refreshingly, American Murder was actually well-paced throughout. For someone like me who wasn’t familiar with this case before watching the documentary, the reveal of what had happened to Shanann and her two pre-school daughters was genuinely shocking. Her husband Chris Watts confessed to their murders within three days of their disappearance. Statistically, this shouldn’t be a surprise - but his demeanor in all the cute family home videos, wedding recordings and cutesy pregnancy announcements stands in terrifyingly stark contrast to the manner of the murders.
On the positive side:
Good pacing and editing. As mentioned, a lot of documentaries in this sort of format can have draggy patches. Often, the authentic found footage will take up more time than is justified by the value it brings to the story, and on top of that the quality of the filming is lower in quality, which can make it very easy to get distracted. American Murder has the right proportion of content to get a clear sense of the voices of the key players in these murders. Information from Shanann’s Facebook page gives the viewer familiarity. You can’t help but liken her to the people you know and follow on social media - which makes her fate all the more chilling. It may be American Murder, but the footage shared from Shanann’s life is relatable to people all over the world. When you find out that Chris is the killer, you cast your mind back through everything you’ve seen with this family - the home videos, the text messages, the Facebook posts - trying to see if there were any early signs.
Most effectively, after the full extent of the horror comes out, they re-show an early scene where concerned neighbours come to the Watts’ home to try to figure out what happened to Shanann. With the full horror of the murders fresh in your mind, the footage is viewed fundamentally differently.
Draws you into the people’s lives. Since a lot of the early story is told through social media posts and home videos, as the viewer you feel almost like you know Shanann and her family. The text messages add to the personal intimacy so you’re noting how this family is like any number of families you see online. Shanann’s online voice I thought was effectively captured in a way that draws the viewer into her story and brings her to life in a way that is often lacking. Too often, the murder victim is spoken of in the reverent third person - “her smile would light up the whole room” or “he would never hurt anyone”. By giving Shanann’s voice that first-person focus and letting us laugh at her goofy pregnancy announcement T-shirt, American Murder elevates itself from eulogy and starts to feel so much more three-dimensional. We don’t hear about Shanann from others in the context of death and grief - instead we connect with her in a way we connect with those we know every day. And it doesn’t end up being overdone.
On the negative side:
It’s hard to identify anything about American Murder that’s an unmitigated negative. As someone with no prior familiarity with the case, I found the sudden confession to be rather abrupt. I was literally going, “whoa whoa waaaait a minute”. And yet, the quick pacing is a refreshing change from a lot of slower-paced documentaries that seem to spend too much time on interviews that ultimately yield little of real value to the investigation. Once Chris gives up his innocent act, everything unravels very quickly. And this is effective in a way - I can’t say that it would be better if it was slower.
The documentary briefly touches on some victim blaming unpleasantness that happened online without fully exploring it - but I actually saw the benefit in not giving these people any more platform or attention. A lot of that crowd will take any attention at all as encouragement and support (like dogs but less likeable). So this is also probably more of a smart move.
I wasn’t expecting to like Queer Eye as much as I did. First of all, I put it on kind of impulsively. Second of all, makeover-themed shows always feel normative to the point of staleness to me. With so many makeover shows, there’s the tired narrative: “Look at this sad single mum who is busy with kids and work! Look she doesn’t wear makeup! And look how badly she dresses! Feel sorry for her! But thankfully, the Fashion Fascists are here to the rescue! #fabulous”
Turns out, with this Queer Eye series, I should have had more faith in the ‘More than a Makeover’ subtitle! ‘Dress better’ is part of the show but it’s actually a relatively minor part and it’s contextualised in a broader ‘uplifting personal journey’ story. It’s not about looking prettier, it’s about finding joy on one’s own terms.
What’s right about it:
Very very funny: several LOL moments per episode, many quotable quotes.
Literally none of the misgivings I had about this show came to pass. So many makeover shows are focused on the surface, but Queer Eye consistently takes a compassionate look at the interplay between the surface and the hidden depths going on in people’s lives.
I kind of expected a “gay men here to get a terminally straight man to stop wearing his ugly faded ripped car logo T-shirts from the 1970s and wear proper jeans that fit” thing to be going on here. And once again, I should have had more faith. Some of the people on the show are fashion-challenged straight men, but that is by no means the only demographic featured! In one episode, the quote: “this is our first lesbian!” could come across as cringy out of context but once you get the vibe and dialect of the show it’s really endearing. You never get the ‘gay fairy godmother’ situation vibes - not least because a lot of episodes are centered entirely in the praxis of queer communities. Very refreshing, 10/10, would recommend, would watch more.
It’s actually really encouraging in showing progress in attitudes towards the rainbow community! Does anyone remember ‘no homo’? Like when the possibility of being mistaken for gay is a legit concern for straight men? When straight men want to go out of their way to emphasise that they’re definitely not gay? Yeah, Queer Eye shows how a lot of that is dying out. The first episode I saw was the ‘fashion challenged straight guy’. When the gay hairdresser is going “yaahhs, you are serving up faaace, this is BEAUTIFUL!” there isn’t any “dude I’m not gay” moment, it’s just a sweet moment. Towards the end, he mentions to his new girlfriend, “They opened up to me, and I opened myself completely to them” and there was NO CRASS JOKE HERE HONESTLY IT WAS SO REFRESHING AND GENUINE AND SWEET. There are so many funny moments in this series but it’s never a mean cliched ‘gay’ joke at someone’s expense.
It’s just really uplifting in how unapologetically sincere it is. I remember in high school it was supposed to be an insult to be a ‘try hard’ - ignoring that trying hard is the only way that anything improves! Trying hard means you care. It means you’re personally invested in something. It means you’re willing to be a little bit embarrassed along the way to making something better. Trying hard takes real courage. And there was a time when it was ‘cooler’ to be blasé and bored and “sooooo over it”. But Queer Eye unapologetically embraces everyone’s vulnerability with a genuine warmth and affection. There are emotional moments. There are sensitive bits. There are silly bits when people laugh and embarrass themselves and all of this works so well.
What’s wrong about it: absolutely nothing is wrong with Queer Eye. NOOOOOTHING. Fight me. This is a 10/10 show.
I always feel like a bit of a true crime heretic when The Staircase comes up just because it seems so universally acclaimed. The Guardian calls it “the godfather of the true crime documentary”. (Um, Forensic Files has entered the chat). The New York Times called it “genre defining”. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 94% approval rating. Meanwhile I’m over here in the corner going, “ok well it’s definitely interesting and thought-provoking, but the editing leaves much to be desired and the pacing can get really slow. Is it bad, no. Am I jumping out of my chair shrieking that everyone must watch this right this minute, also no”
Basically, The Staircase is a series of 8 45-minute episodes exploring the conviction of Michael Peterson for the December 2001 death of his wife Kathleen. According to Michael, they were both chilling out at the swimming pool at their Forest Hills, North Carolina mansion. Close to midnight, Kathleen went up to the house, whereas Michael stayed out there until about 2am. He then says that he went into the house to find Kathleen unconscious at the bottom of the staircase, whereupon he then called for an ambulance. She died shortly after that and Michael has always maintained his innocence.
However, in 2003 he ended up being convicted of her murder and sent to prison. A medical examiner’s report stated that Kathleen’s cause of death was homicide. The prosecution painted a picture of Kathleen discovering Michael’s affairs with other men, followed by an argument that ended with Michael beating Kathleen to death with a blow poke (that mysteriously went missing after Kathleen died.)
The Staircase follows how Michael’s defense team prepares for his trial by putting together evidence indicative of Kathleen’s death being from an accidental fall. I think the thing about The Staircase is that you really need to be invested in the case to stay interested in the series – and the early episodes alone may or may not get you invested into the case. The Staircase isn’t just about Kathleen’s death – it’s also about how much trust Americans can place in their justice system, about what makes a fair trial, about what can and cannot be counted as court-admissible evidence and about how the defense team should go about addressing the more controversial aspects of Michael’s life and past. So there’s a lot of substance, a lot of high-level long-form investigative reporting going on here – but this substance is undermined by the heavy bias. It’s also notable that such as the focus is in this direction, Kathleen Peterson herself conspicuously disappears from centre stage. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with how little focus there was on the person she was, especially while the line “They built a new family out of the strands of their prior families” is repeated no less than five times in episode 4. (Okay maybe four times? BUT STILL)
What’s right with it?
You get a view of the preparations for the court case that’s uniquely intimate and revealing without ever becoming voyeuristic. It’s especially interesting how the defense team debate the best way to handle those issues peripheral to the case – the elements that don’t in and of themselves have a bearing on Michael’s guilt or innocence, but certainly cast a suspicious light onto him. These issues – Michael’s affairs, the eerily similar death of his flatmate Elizabeth Ratliff sixteen years earlier – are the subject of intense debate. Elizabeth’s death, originally ruled as from an aneurysm, is later ruled a homicide following her body’s exhumation. The defence team were passionately opposed to the exhumation, then during the 2008 appeal, it was argued that the submission of both Michael’s bisexuality and Elizabeth’s newly-contested death in the original trial made the trial unfair. It raises the question – is this “tainted” evidence, or just, well, evidence? (I’d call it “relevant context”)
All of this means that The Staircase can provoke some really interesting discussions when watched with other people. There’s a lot of dialogue and subjectivity featured in the show, which tends to be mirrored in the discussions you have with whoever you’re watching it with. Something like Forensic Files tends to be a more linear progression to an uncontested conclusion, but there’s also something very intellectually rewarding about The Staircase being more open-ended.
What’s wrong with it?
One thing we need to get out of the way here is that the bias is real. The Staircase is selling the audience a narrative that casts Michael as the bereaved husband victimised again by the justice system and unjustly punished as a murderer. But his guilt/innocence is still a matter of intense debate. The Staircase isn’t saying “let’s explore if he’s guilty or innocent” – it’s more “he is innocent”. It omits a lot of the evidence that points towards Michael’s guilt. In fact, the more you read about the evidence presented during the trial, the more you notice how egregiously edited the courtroom footage is. Watching the trial as presented in The Staircase, I was thinking “hey wait a minute here, they have not presented an incriminating case for murder”. But there was a lot of major blood evidence left out of the trial footage:
· A Luminol test of the scene indicated that there had been an attempt to clean up blood at some point before the arrival of paramedics
· The blood spatter pattern on Michael’s shorts was in, well, a spatter, indicating that the blood actively sprayed upwards towards him – contradicting his claim to have found Kathleen unconscious at the scene
This is never adequately addressed by the defense at any point in The Staircase
The Staircase would benefit from tighter editing and structuring. Michael and especially his lawyer David Rudolf seem to be driving the direction of each episode – in many places it seems like they’ve been given too much leeway to run with, and neither of them are particularly given to levity. So what ends up happening is…basically a fair amount of filler. A lot of details aren’t given the context for the audience to really interpret them with clarity. The first episode covers the night Kathleen died, but the important points of evidence come in dribs and drabs. You watch it thinking “ok, so he’s calling for an ambulance while she’s still breathing, that’s rather innocent-seeming of him!” – but the time of death isn’t ever solidly established. (The coroner’s report gives ?2:40. Literally that’s what it says). Several scenes later, one of the lawyers mentions that by the time the paramedics arrived (which would have been around 2:40), the blood at the scene was already dry, suggesting Kathleen would have already been dead for some time.
Here, there’s a need to establish:
-how long does it take blood to dry in these conditions?
-what was the time of paramedic arrival?
-what was the coroner/medical examiner able to establish about when Kathleen died? Were they able to say “ok it could not have been any earlier than x or later than y, with a likely range of a-z”?
Without bringing basic facts of the case into focus like this, the editing on The Staircase can come across as sloppy. The pacing can never be described as efficient but it becomes particularly slow after the first four episodes
Overall: 6.3/10, would recommend watching if:
· You can watch with someone else and discuss the case.
· You also look at other sources on the case
· You can watch it without ad breaks! The first time I tried to watch this was on TV where there were ad breaks and I was like “hmph what are all these glowing reviews going on about”. Ad breaks made the slow-paced patches so much worse.
This review will be more about first impressions. I’ve seen the first episode (’Lost in Los Angeles’) but I haven’t yet finished the full series. I don’t generally binge watch things - I’m more likely to watch half an episode of something at a time than 2 episodes! And it actually took me 3 goes to get through this first episode of Crime Scene - mainly because I found this opening episode fairly disjointed, like it was taking too long to settle on a direction.
There was a lot going on in this episode: the general history of LA’s Cecil Hotel, the ghetto-ization going on in the local area surrounding the hotel, and the hotel’s morbid reputation - but its ultimate focus was on the February 2013 death of 21-year-old Canadian university student Elisa Lam. However, the first episode gives itself so much breadth to cover that the parts focused on this case felt more like snippets that had yet to coalesce into an incisive investigation
One element of this first episode of Crime Scene that may put people off is that it introduces paranormal/haunting suggestions. When security workers at the Cecil Hotel narrate the footage they found of Elisa Lam shortly before her disappearance, her movements are likened to “summoning a spirit”. The hotel itself is given personification frequently. It’s difficult to tell if they’re setting up for an empirical-based investigation or if they will waste time on haunted house theories. (The trailer certainly emphasizes the latter).
I got a bit put off during the supernatural references. I thought the most compelling element was the juxtaposition of the macro-scale ghetto effects of the Skid Row area surrounding the Cecil Hotel with the snippets of Elisa’s perspective expressed through her Tumblr entries. In 1976, all services for homeless people and recently released prisoners in the Los Angeles area were concentrated in Skid Row. It became a dumping ground for ‘undesirables’ - hospitals were known to discharge people to this area if they had no fixed address. Even in 2013, the time of Elisa’s disappearance, it was known as a dangerous area. (One memorable reminiscence featured is an eyewitness account of someone BITING THE HEAD OFF A LIVE PIGEON).
Meanwhile, Elisa’s Tumblr entries are immediately relatable. She wants to explore the world but she worries about saying something embarrassing and she also needs to figure out the money side of things. It’s all instantly recognisable and real, very characteristic of the early twentysomething condition. Her worries and curiosities are universal. The scene is set of her heading unwittingly into danger, but as it turns out, the real danger was mental illness and bad hotel security - much less attention-grabbing than pigeon head eaters.
From the reviews I’ve read so far, Crime Scene gets worse from here so I probably won’t commit to finishing it. Elisa Lam ended up being found dead in a water tank on the roof of the hotel, and her death was ruled an accident - no concrete evidence of homicide was found, and her unusual behavior caught on security cameras was attributed to a mental health crisis due to bipolar disorder*. But how much is this series going to answer the question of how she got into this water tank in the first place? And the other question of how security at the hotel was tightened up following her death? This show doesn’t seem like it will bring any new information about the central issues here so I won’t be in a big hurry to finish.
I think the best way to introduce the consistency and quality of Forensic Files is that it’s so frequently the show that wins out over all others when my family is wanting to watch a forensic true crime show. We would scroll through Netflix and, 9 times out of 10, settle on Forensic Files. Other shows may get clunky, fillery, confusing or go off on random tangents - but when we put on a Forensic Files episode, we always know that we’ll see the murder solved in 20 minutes with some interesting detective work.
In fact, when Forensic Files was recently taken off Netflix, we were SHOOKETH. There was a huge Forensic Files-shaped hole in Netflix. We literally did not know what to watch in its absence. (And no, Night Stalker is not a worthy substitute).
With fourteen seasons, Forensic Files covers an impressive range of the forensic science field. The Talking Skull is notable for how a murder was solved through the initial finding of just a skull. A Novel Idea is about how blood spatter evidence was used to convict Michael Peterson of the murder of his wife Kathleen (this is the case that The Staircase is about). It’s always exciting to see how something like a fingerprint, hair or even plant matter can be used to track down the killer and piece together the rest of the evidence that proves their guilt. What’s more, Forensic Files always tells the story with engaging focus. The episodes are consistently satisfying in how they show how the crimes were solved.
What’s right with it?
-Good pacing and structuring. Each episode is 20 minutes so the time is used well. If you get frustrated by talking waffle (My Favourite Murder, I’m looking at you), filler (The Staircase, that’s you) or shows that meander aimlessly without getting to the point(s), Forensic Files is here to answer your prayers
-A focus on the forensic science and the investigation over gory details. No gratuitously gory re-enactments.
-Consistency! Some shows can have a blah episode or go through a clunky patch but ‘clunky’ is NEVER a word you can use to describe Forensic Files. Narration is always 10/10
-Bad Blood, Double Cross and Bitter Potion are standout episodes because they’re cases where the solution is less obvious. Usually there’s an obvious suspect who ends up being guilty, but all of these cases have “WHOA WHOA HOLD THE PHONE” moments. It doesn’t hurt that they are always told with an engaging pace that educates you on the forensic science without ever getting bogged down in it.
-Broad accessible appeal. Pretty much everyone I show Forensic Files to enjoys it. It has cross-generational appeal, and even people who don’t usually go for true crime get into the stories. I even know someone who’s using it to teach science classes in high school! You can watch an episode without any familiarity with the case, or indeed forensic science, and both understand and enjoy it. I’ve recently listened to Down The Hill, an excellent podcast about the investigation of the 2017 unsolved murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German. This podcast was so well made. I have no complaints about it. Very comprehensive, around 10/10, would recommend. But a lot of episodes would require prior familiarity with the case in order to understand what they’re talking about. You can’t just listen to the podcast, you really have to also view the website and read about the case as well. To some extent, the same is true for The Staircase (in this case since The Staircase is focused towards making the case for Michael’s innocence, you really need to read more sources to get a comprehensive picture of the murder OR WATCH THE FORENSIC FILES EPISODE A NOVEL IDEA WHICH IS ABOUT HOW HE WAS FOUND GUILTY). It seems like a lot of more recent true crime media will focus multiple long episodes on one murder. As Internet communities have proliferated and diversified and information has become more widespread, people are more apt to go down “rabbit holes” gathering huge volumes of information on unsolved murders and going through different theories. Forensic Files started back in 1996, so it has a much different feel. They’re not presenting to a specialised audience who have already researched each case extensively. They’re aiming it at a general TV audience. Down The Hill is completely equal to Forensic Files in quality, but I can see how they’re fundamentally written with different audiences in mind. Down The Hill is an amazing engaging podcast for people already familiar with the murders with the information on the case at their fingertips. Forensic Files is something you can show in a science classroom to get young people interested in forensic science.
-Substance and density without ponderous clunkiness!!!!
What’s wrong with it?
-There’s nothing I’d actively say is wrong with Forensic Files. Some episodes can be a bit predictable and give the killer away too early but that’s really a minor quibble.
-Crime Seen is the one bad episode that I’d say falls below a 6.5/10. It’s the only episode where the conclusion is dissatisfying. Basically, a woman is attacked and raped, and the wrong man ends up being arrested and imprisoned for it. The problem is, they never actually catch the real guilty person!!! Halfway through, the question shifts from “who attacked this woman and can we catch him before he strikes again?” to “how can this innocent man prove his innocence?”. We can’t have a fully happy ending if the actual rapist got away with it!
Overall: 9.8/10, would recommend to anyone interested in forensics, would watch again
