We used to have a feature on Previously.TV called Show Down. We’d throw everything from summarily fired Law & Order characters (Logan versus Southerlyn) to pathetic TV origami swans (an ad from 2015 versus Patty Chase’s candy-wrapper version on My So-Called Life) into a theoretical battledome, and gauge which fighter emerged “victorious.” I think I even did a Blotter-branded one back in the day billed as “Battle Of The Crusading Lifetime-Movie Moms Played By Marcia Gay Harden”? I can’t find it in the archives just now1, but every now and then I consider dusting off the format for Best Evidence — “Dopesick vs. Painkiller in The Battle Of The Multi-Episode Awards-Bait Sackler Indictments” — and then it feels too flip, so I go a different way.

But in the course of recording a guest appearance on the estimable Crime Seen podcast late last week, CS co-hosts Sarah and Mari 1) agreed with me that Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case is frustratingly insufficient, but 2) had a lot of praise for the not-dissimilar My Daughter’s Killer…and I found myself once again considering a Show Down. The concern re: possible cutesiness still pertains, but my hope is that side-by-siding the two features gives me a little more insight into why one feels rote and tentative, while the other is idiosyncratic and compelling.

[cracks knuckles] Okay, understanding that you may find spoilers in the body of the piece, let’s get into…

The Battle Of The Imported Netflix Documentaries Featuring Fathers’ Lengthy And Tireless Attempts To Get Justice For Their Daughters On Foreign Soil