I read a lot of reviews on IMDB, but have never left a review before, and this is my first one ever. I've never been bothered to make an account just so I can leave a review, but this series had been so bad that I had to leave a review right after I watched the Kimberly Saenz episode (Kim supposedly killed 5 dialysis patients by injecting bleach into their blood).
Like the only other review currently ("Make Piers believe"), I also watched a few episodes (3 for me), and it had made me so mad, I was compelled to leave a review.
I'd like to say that I don't know whether any of the people interviewed are truly innocent or guilty, but I do know that I know exactly what it is like to be the only sane person around, to suffer unfair biases, and have everyone around you refuse to hear your story or to give you the slightest bit of support.
This series is NOT a documentary. It is not even investigative journalism like 60 Minutes. As far as I am concerned, it has zero credibility and I do not intend on watching any more episodes. It does not give interviewees a fair chance to present their side of the story, and instead is a dramatic, manipulated re-telling of the story the producers/Piers want you to hear.
It is more of a reality tv show that, even if it is not scripted, it is still dramatised, cut and edited to present the story in a certain predetermined way, with manipulative questioning that borderlines or even entirely is, interrogation. This is already biased.
Piers actually said he will quote, "certainly" be fair - he absolutely was not. The other reviewer took the words right out of my mouth. Like the other reviewer, I also saw that Piers was rude, interrogative, and plain hostile, (the other reviewer used the words belligerent and confrontational and I don't have any better words).
The first thing I noticed was that Piers CONSTANTLY interrupts people. He starts interviews by saying he will be fair, but then immediately proceeds to do the exact opposite. He is being UNFAIR by constantly interrupting the interviewee, most unforgivably when the interviewee is trying to answer a question HE ASKED THEM or a statement HE posed to them, robbing them the chance to answer the question.
For example, in the Kimberly Saenz episode, he read out loud all the terms that was found on her computer that she had searched up before a patient died (like "can bleach be detected in dialysis lines").
Innocent people can search up suspicious looking search terms. I search these things up myself when I see strange search terms mentioned in news articles or fictional movies just to see what the answers were. The law enforcement also did. My initial thought was that if she was innocent, she very well could have searched them up out of curiosity to see whether someone, not her, could have put the bleach into the patient's blood and it was easily blamed it on Kim because it was not detectable. If someone was going to do this and blame it on me, I for sure would search it up and see if someone could have done an untraceable thing and put the blame on me.
Each time Kim started to try and answer, Piers interrupted. Kim was never allowed to pose her side of the story regarding this!
Keep in mind that this series is supposed to show the accused' side of the story, and thus is supposed to be fair and present facts in neutral light. Each episode starts with "Now we can judge for ourselves".
In actual fact, Piers makes his own judgements, and uses manipulative questioning that directs the narrative towards a specific direction. For example, Piers says OUTRIGHT to the interviewee's face, accusational questions that already assumes they are guilty, like:
"Why did you do it?" as if it had been established that they did, when the point of the show is to present facts and let the viewer decide whether the accused is guilty or now.
In the Kimberly Saenz episode, they had 2 patients with so-called "medical backgrounds" who were interviewed. I saw their statements. The show never explained what exactly they meant by "medical background", but let me tell you as an actual trained medical biologist with laboratory experience, those two patients did not have anything REMOTELY close to "medical" backgrounds. The show did say that those two people quote, "worked medical facilities". Now, that could be anything from cleaners to receptionists. You can definitely tell from their manner of speech that they were not actual healthcare medical experts with experience in medical biology. Their speech were not eloquent manner that one would expect from a scientifically trained person and neither were their mannerisms. Which begs the question: this show did not honestly and transparently portray these two witnesses with supposed "medical background" - why?
And you want us, viewers, to believe what Piers ultimately decides, which is not even the point of the show?
Piers shows a total lack of fairness and empathy, like he has gone in with his mind made up. For example, Piers said in this episode, so casually, "Oh, I am" as if he was responding to a question like "I thought you were leaving?", when he was actually responding to Kim's statement of "I don't think you are taking everything into consideration". When Kim said this again, Piers said flatly, "We looked into everything."
Really? You did? Piers sound like the deadbeat authorities who refuse to take any action and try to get away with being lazy by simply saying "We've looked at everything, we can't help, the end, now go away." It's like talking to a wall, no wonder Kim got up and walked away upset.
When Kim said "It (accusation Piers was making) doesn't make sense", Piers said in a very certain way as if he was explaining a fact, the way parents say to kids 'because I said so': "It does make sense".
Piers, you are supposed to be presenting the facts to the audience, not influencing them based on your own opinions! If he succeeded in doing anything, based on his unfair actions and manipulative questioning alone, I have been convinced that Kim and Christopher Porco are innocent.
When Kim said "I thought you were going to help me", Piers said, in an amused way, "Help you with what?" as if he had just betrayed someone and was amused by it. I don't know Kim and don't know about this case, but based on the supposed format of this TV show, I agree with her, I thought the he was going to help her (and the other interviewees) by giving them a chance to tell their side of the story. This never actually happens, because as the other reviewer points out, there are no intelligent questions that allow the audience and general public to analyse and decide for themselves what the truth is. Instead, the show and questions focuses on and directs you purposely towards a predetermined decision, like "why did you do this?" or questions that frame thoughts like, your theory is unbelievable and therefore it can't be true.
Appallingly, in this episode, when Kim responded "Help me get the truth out", he replied "I think we did get the truth out."
Really? No you didn't! You said what YOU think and what you wanted the audience to think, and stated them as if they were facts! That does not make them "the truth"! That's why these cases have been specifically selected, because these are cases with circumstantial evidence and thus is not 100% clear whether the interviewee is guilty or not!
Heck, he even said "If I were on the jury, I would have convicted you.", telling the audience exactly what they are supposed to think.
This is extremely poor journalism and deserves nothing short of 0 stars. As far as journalism goes, it fails across the board: investigation, analysis, unbiased presentation, stating of FACTS. 100% of my star rating goes towards the quality of journalism, (of which there was none) since this is a journalistic show as opposed to a block buster movie or TV drama show, and I could then also rate it on say cinematography or effects. It truly seems like there was no investigation done, no thorough analyses, no consideration of all the facts (Kim said there were some things not permitted to be considered in the case, and unfortunately this happens, like in the Christian Brückner case, some witnesses and evidence weren't admitted which would otherwise had made him found guilty, or in the Natalia Grace case, her age, which is central to the entire point of the court cases, weren't allowed to be mentioned).
To quote the other reviewer:
Piers ends the interviews with "I don't believe you" - making himself the jury, judge & executioner.
