4 doc premieres, 3 tacky titles, 2 Skye hooks...
...and a "Black Bird" in an Apple+ tree
the true crime that's worth your time
The In The Dark/MPR situation gets even, well, darker than we thought. We started following the story last month when Minnesota Public Radio decided to shut down APM Reports and In The Dark, and told staffers about the decision via email/Zoom call. Since then, various outlets have done the inside-media-analysis equivalent of sniffing the air and making faces, us included — ITD got a guy out of prison and is IME literally the only investigative podcast everyone reviewing in the genre agrees is outstanding.
And it gets worse: our esteemed colleague Skye Pillsbury dove deep into the story for her new Substack The Squeeze yesterday, and not only did ITD get sacked, but
According to sources, the In the Dark team had been halfway through reporting on season three when the team received the news.
So what happened? Were there no other options?
Pillsbury talked to a lot of people about what went on behind the scenes; baffling decision-making at MPR; and other podcasters and radio-journalism pros (including another esteemed colleague, Crime Writers On…’s Rebecca Lavoie). It’s a thorough and well-written piece, and it certainly won’t make you less irritated at the outcome, but if it nets you a sub to The Squeeze, hey, silver lining. — SDB
Selena Gomez’s Spanish-language docuseries premiered yesterday on ViX+. We mentioned the Only Murders star’s foray into the production side late last year; the three-part Mi Vecino, El Cartel made its debut exclusively on Univision’s new streaming service…which in theory costs $6.99 a month, but in practice, if you can stand to wait a few weeks and you’ve got T-Mobile or Sprint, you can nab a free year of the streamer provided your account qualifies (and it looks like most non-business accounts do). — SDB
Indian Predator: The Butcher of Delhi also premiered this week. I’ve added this one to my list despite the sweaty promotional copy Eve complained about a few weeks ago — and the stupid algorithm tricks happening in the screenshot above (oh, a show with “predator” and “butcher” in the title is “dark,” eh? …smh) — because I feel like I don’t get enough international-case content in my true-crime diet. Anyone else sampling this one?
Between that and the return of Delhi Crime for a second season next month, get ready for Netflix to start cluelessly suggesting a bunch of not-really-pertinent Bollywood content for me (so…I’ll take some recs there too if you’ve got them!). — SDB
And I guess it’s the Summer of Borgman at Netflix (and/or Skye Friday here at Best Evidence?), because the cringily titled I Just Killed My Dad drops on the streamer Wednesday August 9. Although I’m of two not-terribly-different minds about the choice. The first, and I forgot to mention it during our Extra Hot Great discussion of Lifetime’s Phrogging: Hider In My House earlier this week — I also forgot to mention that we talked about that! tl;dr: watch the first ep, after that you’re all set — but my SIL Sam and our friend Lady Rachel used to sit around in the yard playing Guess The LMN Movie Title. The “judge” would read a plot summary, and the two players had to guess the name of the property; whoever got closest won, but the gag was that Lifetime used extremely uncreative SEO-humping names, so you had to think not outside the box but as close to the diametric center of the box as possible.
Phrogging: Hider In My House is an outstanding example. Like, this network is not going to give you pun-ditry like Bad Ronald’s The Wall or Stud-Finder’s Revenge. They’re going with [Specific Felony] [“In {City Name} If Necessary”] Colon [Exactly What Happened To Person Or Persons Who Agreed To Fair Use Of Their Names], without fail. Which is why I always lost, because I would go for the laugh with Up In Arms: The Cleveland Torso Murders and it wouldn’t be even close. Point is, someone at Netflix seems to have read that manual because, despite not closing the loop with an overexplain-y The Templet Family Shooting, IJKMD is operating with the bluntest of SEO force.
The other thing is that it’s a truth not nearly universally enough acknowledged that using the syllables “mom” or “dad” in your true-crime titles is automatic ook. Love Daddy, Watch Mommy Die…it just default disadvantages the material while making it smell like artificial cherry. (Do exceptions like Mommy Dead and Dearest disprove the rule? IMO, no.)
All of that said, while Borgman is at times cynically propulsive in her approach, she makes watchable shit, and it’s about cases you haven’t gotten saturated on. This time, via Netflix’s materials, it’s
unbelievable, never-been-told-before true story of the Templet family. Anthony Templet shot his father and never denied it. But why he did it is a complex question with profound implications that go far beyond one family. This three-episode documentary series explores the psyche of Anthony leading up to the events of June 3, 2019, and the journey of his mental and emotional aftermath.
So, we’ll see, but I’m cautiously in. — SDB
I was also cautiously in for Freeform’s Dear Pony, then forgot to circle back on it when its June premiere date came and went. If you did the same — or you did remember it, then wondered why it didn’t come out — the drop date moved to August 29 for broadcast. Directed by, among others, Amy Berg, the four-parter will air two episodes that night, and two the next. — SDB
The crime
From Eve’s write-up of the “first-look” photography from the Black Bird set a few months back:
[C]onvicted drug dealer Jimmy Keene ([Taron] Egerton)…was recruited by the feds to elicit a confession from suspected serial killer Larry DeWayne Hall ([Paul Walter] Hauser).
The story
I haven’t read In With The Devil, the crimoir Apple+’s limited series is adapted from, although I do carry it at the shop — and I haven’t watched past the first episode of Black Bird, but 1) I promised to review this mofo ages ago and 2) after that one hour, I have the information you and I need, to wit: it’s good, and I recommend it.
And not just because of the camera’s decision to linger on Egerton’s ass/extensively prepped lats, although I am the opposite of mad about that. I am a little, if not mad, then weirded out at Egerton’s Casey Siemaszko vibe, and having not really seen Egerton in anything else prior to BB, I didn’t know what to expect — but he, like the production overall, is making unexpected choices from the jump. The story as you understand it when you start BB is going to have certain beats, but the writing doesn’t always clip into the climbing line, so to say; scenes and the actors in them don’t do anything avant-garde or anything, and the series isn’t self-conscious about its own thoughtfulness, but it’s evident in a lot of places that writers and performers took the time to think about the genre clichés that viewers expect to see in certain spots, and to create and play the scenes “as new.” I don’t know if that makes sense, and it’s not like there’s never a narratively trite element — Greg Kinnear regarding a crime scene in which one grubby red Converse is lying on its side, for example — but Black Bird is stylish and watchable, but not too, and without drawing attention to it.
As well, a lot of us came to the BB party for Ray Liotta, and he’s really good. I’ve loved him in gruff-daddish mode since Narc, and his first scene here is maybe a bit showy, but he earns it. I’d rather he hadn’t died in order for us to focus on these sorts of things, but he’s always been so much more interesting onscreen when he’s not on Henry-Hill autopilot, and this performance so far has me feeling the loss of him. It’s also very nice father-son casting with Egerton, who looks enough like Liotta for it to go, and picks enough similar mannerisms and ways of holding his body to sell it without it becoming an SNL skit.
Kinnear is perfect for the haunted cop here (see above re: thinking through why certain beats go where they do, and starting from one with them; he’s great at that); it’s always nice to see Lee Tergesen (and remember I have to Bet-Crap that guy); Robert Wisdom’s delivery of “You played chicken with us and you lost. Embrace that concept”…I basically wrote a string of heart-eyes emojis in my notes. Maybe it gets boring later, I don’t think you’re going to deeply regret not watching it, and it’s not something I will stop strangers on the street to recommend — but mostly because it’s the fourth straight day of 101-degree real-feel temps here in the 718. It’s really is nice to see an estimable group of pros doing considered work in the genre, and to lean back with a bowl of cut-up fruit and enjoy watching it.
So, if you subscribe to Apple+, consider taking part of the weekend to do just that. (I will happily provide the fruit, Dan lugged home a whole watermelon the other day and it’s delicious but I’m just one guy.) — SDB
Next week on Best Evidence: A Rachel Monroe reader, stupid Cuomo tricks, fashion crimes (you’ll see), and the Lindbergh case.
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