At Witt's End the Hunt for a Killer

Apparently most of the reviewers hated this to the point they wanted their four hours back.

But, I beg to differ. I actually thought this was really interesting. It is a rare true crime documentary that appears to follow the investigation in "real time" -- or "as it happens". And so, there is a lot of stuff that some people think is boring, but I found strangely fascinating.

I come from a law enforcement family... but I need not have that pedigree to say that crime solving is not SVU or CSI. It is a lot of dead ends and rabbit holes and making mistakes. And not solving anything.

I am so used to the normal retrospective kind of documentary series that it took me a while to figure out this series: that we were following the investigators alongside them.... as I said, in real time. And to be honest, maybe I'm nuts and imagining what I figured out.

Do you like to see how a sausage is made? This true crime series might be for you. Do you want to be introduced to a crime, watch the leads develop and see the solution? Move along, this is going to bore the living skull out of you.

What seems to have happened is that Ridley Scott may have brought a cinematic quality to a procedural crime show that is incredibly heavy on procedure. This is a show that might become popular with law enforcement officers and wannabes who enjoy seeing the actual day to day activities that go into a cold crime investigation. You hear the same cops talking endlessly about the same subjects in that very vague legal speak that covers all bases and goes nowhere, for the most part.

This series is for these people. Not for casual true crime fans.

Also, the abrupt ending to the series, with DNA tests still pending, suggest that money on the production may have run out or that maybe the filmmakers decided to move onto other projects, but it definitely leaves the viewer with a feeling of having wasted 4 hours of their lives on this exercise in police interviewing. Cause that's basically what you get. Hours of cops talking about the same things, over and over.

But the production itself looks much better than your average show. The first episode, particularly, where they get a chance to recreate the crime as it happened, is dynamic and exciting.

The series title is a perfect giveaway and metaphor. "At Witt's End" perfect, exciting, engaging. "The Hunt for a Killer" incredibly boring, pedestrian, and overly long.

I sympathize with the families, but wish this documentary had been done in a better manner, so that it could achieve some justice for the victims. I find it frustrating that these documentaries get into these people's lives yet fail to provide true means towards justice.

A lot of redundancy in what information is being discussed or set forth. Apparent, distracting direction, I think the production teams should have rethought their choices on going forth with with the team they had in place.

I will credit the law enforcement officers and agencies with being very thorough and doing their best to solve this case. I find their actions to be very commendable, in fact, the footage covering their efforts is the only documentation worth watching in this series.

One thing I found irritating, was that Charlene Shirk seemed to always subtly turn it back to be about her and not the victims. I don't find her to be a very credible journalist. She'd be best just to stay out of the documentary field, except, she seems to want make herself front and center, and enjoys the schadenfreude.

I had to give this one to one out of 10 as the series promised a lot and all of the promotional trailers and information given out, but when you actually watch the film, it stretches out to four episodes of absolutely nothing. There was not enough focus on the life of Melissa Witt there was way too much time spent on Discussing A serial killer suspect who may or may not have had anything to do with Melissa's murder. I actually found it downright strange that they included so much information that was not even relevant to the actual investigation of her murder. It felt like there was some sort of preconceived notion and agenda by someone making the documentary who was willing the suspect serial killer to be the one responsible, even though there was really nothing that pointed to him. I'm sorry fake tears from the FBI agent did it for me It was gross and embarrassing that he fake cried. Overall, do not recommend this documentary for any reason. It was an absolute waste of time.

The first episode was compelling but the next three got increasingly less so with each one.

The journalist who was a main commentator felt very self congratulatory, it bothered me that she seemed to repeatedly imply that she was the reason that various things were found, like because of her compassion and empathy she was responsible for getting this case some traction when nobody else around them was doing anything about it. That very well might be the case, but it just rubbed me the wrong way that here she was talking about this horrible story about what happened to this young girl and she seemed to prioritize the telling of a story in a way that made her the unspoken hero. It was distracting and I felt that it took away from the credibility of the story she was telling.

There was a lot of procedural stuff going on which can be interesting but in this case felt tedious and superfluous.

I don't know if it's just me, but I have a hard time with true crime documentaries that provide zero definitive answers. It just makes the whole thing feel somewhat anticlimactic, like OK so here's a story of another missing girl that never got found, stories like that are a dime a dozen so it's hard to invest all that energy, time and emotion into a story with no resolution. That's not to say that her story was not a story worth telling, but when it comes to true crime documentaries a huge part of the fascination with the genre is not just the investigation, but the way in which investigators followed clues to a resolution. When there is no resolution I feel affected by the documentarian's personal bias, we ultimately get fed a story which can be Terri picked in a way to fit whatever narrative the documentarian is pushing, like in this case one gets the impression that the suspect is most likely the killer, when in reality there are many other alternate theories none of them more credible than the other so in documentaries like these I feel somewhat misled. It's when there is a resolution that we are able to be shown the facts that led them to its inevitable conclusion.