I'm surprised these stories are mostly from the distant past. Surely there have been countless hostage situations since then, especially since elite forces like S. W. A. T. have advanced by leaps and bounds. I found these interesting enough although there's a reason most shows use professional narration to tell the crux of a story: Because non profesionals are grating to listen to, in many cases, and are very bad at relating details. For that reason, the episodes are often hard to follow and piece together. Also confusing is the lengthy recapping each time it comes back from the expected commercial break because at first you think you're learning new info. Thank goodness for fastforward but if you go too far you'll miss an important detail.
It ends after the hostage situation ends, which seems appropriate to me since it's not a documentary about the criminal but about the hostage, although sometimes there are further details about the arrest or so forth in text at the very end.
If I were rating the competency of the police or SWAT, I'd have to say I think they wait too long to take action on almost every situation.
The narration is good when it does happen and is a nice voice, not one of those yappy high pitched excited tabloid style.
