Heartland Homicide

In a really misguided effort to dramatize these crimes this series moves at a contrived snails pace, and could easily have been a 1/2 hour show or even less, which honestly may have been pretty decent. But by the time it jerks the viewer around with misleading dramatizations, really poor actor portrayals, and intentionally confusing time and story lines which make little sense, I wasted 45 minutes of my life.

I thought episode one was relatively interesting but progressively worse after that. I had to constantly fast forward through the incredibly repetitive recaps, multiple times during the show. Finally bailing after Episode 10, it was the last straw.

Get some competent, un-weird/obnoxious/samctimonious "commentators" with some experience outside of Canada. Things work different in the U. S., and some of the "experts" seem to be oblivious in that regard.

Between the woman who appears to be gasping and laboring with every syllable, the motor mouth lawyer and the way too hypocritical former RCMP guy espousing the virtues of indigenous people (in spite of the RCMP's woeful history of callous indifference to the plight of said people), this is just a lame attempt at appearing relevant and sincere.

It's a great concept and there are unfortunately far too many cases for subject matter but the "credentials" of the spokespeople are inadequate.

This is like a dream where the events are being played out in slow motion. Even the narrator's voice is an agonizingly drawn out monotone. I checked to see if I could change the speed settings, but no. The choice of crimes is great -- I had not heard of any of the first three crime episodes, and I watch a lot of true crime. If the script, dialogue, acting and direction had been done well, I wouldn't stop at the third episode. I stopped at the third episode. A lot of the "action" is even filmed in slow motion and the same scenes shown multiple times in one episode. Maybe that was supposed to create suspense, but once was more than enough. Just. Plain. Stupid. Z-z-z-z-zzzzz.

The one positive about this series is that they present interesting cases. Other than that, the show is not good. (1) It is very, very slow and extremely repetitive - they repeat the same points over and over again. (2) The information presented is not always accurate. For example, in one episode they show a person using a hammer to commit a murder, and repeat this "fact" over and over again. However, upon checking the case court records, I found that there was no hammer used - it was a pipe. I think they put the hammer in for effect, which is lame. Nobody wants to have to check facts when watching a true crime series. (3) The reenactments are also very poor (bad direction, bad "actors", bad in general). And, last but not least: Benji Greenberg (the legal expert) and her voice/manner of speaking have to go. Her vocal fry is so annoying that it absolutely ruins anything positive about the show. I found myself dreading her appearance in each of the episodes I watched (five in total). This is the reason I ultimately stopped watching the show. I would voluntarily listen to fingernails dragged over a chalkboard for a year straight before I listen to one more second of her voice. Think Donald Duck with structured vocal fry and you have hit the bullseye - yes, it is that bad.

If there's ever a series two of this show (which I enjoy), please please oh please get rid of Benji Greenberg! Her speech and voice-especially that vocal fry-is just so annoying that it detracts from the story being presented. There are, I'm sure, plenty other lawyers who can do what she's doing. Otherwise, the show is fairly and clearly depicted. And I really like that it's mainly small towns and not metropolises. (And almost every town's inhabitant who's been interviewed has said, "things like this don't happen here." Sadly, they've been wrong. I do hope there are more shows, just not with that attorney.