September Bonus Reviews: Buzzfeed Unsolved True Crime and Dominick Dunne: After The Party
the true crime that's worth your time
The crime
In the True Crime half of BuzzFeed’s Unsolved series (the other half is Supernatural), Ryan Bergara and his co-host look at “unsolved crimes, particularly well-known cold cases from many years ago.” All the major cases you’d assume are represented; I sampled the Black Dahlia, Somerton Man, and Pink Panthers episodes.
The story
Continuing to quote from the show’s Wikipedia page: “In these [episodes], Bergara typically reads out the story of the case, including evidence the police working on the case used, before presenting a handful of possible suspects and theories, from both the official police reports and the ideas of others, coupled with evidence that can both prove and disprove their involvement. During these cases, [current co-host Shane] Madej will cut in to provide his input, comedic observations, responses, and theories to Bergara, ending the episode with both hosts discussing which theory appears most likely based on the suspects involved.”
I’d have written a completely different review of BuzzFeed Unsolved True Crime if I’d stopped after a handful of first-season episodes and not jumped ahead to a later season; just based on the first season, my review looks something like “not really for me, but service-y, occasionally funny, and top-notch ‘waiting-room TV.’” First-season episodes, co-hosted by Brent Bennett, tend to come in at under 10 minutes each, and that bite-sized length is unique and innovative in the early going. Sure, some of the chyroned exchanges between Bergara and Bennett make you think this would work better as a daily podcast, but BFUTC gets some great visuals, doesn’t dick around too much wandering performatively around key sites in the cases, and is relatably direct and unprepossessing. “How do we know it’s a code?” Bennett demands at one point, about a piece of evidence in the Somerton Man case; Bergara splutters in response, “Because it looks like a fucking code?”, which, why dress it up, seriously.