McMillions

I was stunned to see a new DVR recording every week. Six hour long episodes. Six! Don't expect a big pay off. The final/6th episode turns willing scam participants into sad victims. The only real victims were Simon Marketing employees and factory workers who produced the game tickets.

Mob ties, a snitching Mama, a custody battle, taking out 2nd mortgages, 7 ex-wives, car accident/maybe murder plot...why not just focus on the scam and investigation?

The colorful characters will make you laugh at times, but it still didn't need to be a six-hour loooooooong docu-series.

Watch Ep 1 (was very good) and skip to Ep 6 (to see how the scam unfolded) and keep it moving.

"McMillions" (2020 release; 6 episodes of about 1 hr. each) is a documentary mini-series about the infamous McDonald's Monopoly game, which was rigged for over a decade (1989-2001). As Episode 1 opens, we are given a 30,000 ft. big picture summary of what happened, and we then turn to "Jacksonville, Florida 2001" where we get to know several FBI agents. One of them gets a tip about the Monopoly winners of the last decade somehow being connected to each other. The FBI starts looking into it, and lo and behold, the FBI findings confirm the connections. But how exactly did they pull this fraud off? Who is "Uncle Jerry"? And was someone within McDonald's in on it? At this point we are 15 min. into Episode 1.

Couple of comments: this mini-series is from co-writers/co-directors James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte, making their directing debut. Here they look back at how McDonald's very popular Monopoly game somehow managed to get rigged, and for a period lasting more than a decade no less. In and of itself an interesting topic (and new for me--not sure why I hadn't heard of this incident before). Based on having seen just the first episode, however, I have to wonder why the series makers decided to string this out over 6 hrs. because frankly Episode 1 could've covered what it covered in far less an hour. In other words: it feels like it is running a bit thin. One funny bit is when the FBI team needs to come up with a name for this operation and they think of many alternatives (including "Operation The Unhappy Meal"), but in the end they decode on "Operation Final Answer" (to coincide with the then-popular "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" TV show).

I am not suggesting that this isn't a good documentary mini-series, and I plan on watching the 5 remaining episodes (new episodes air Monday evenings on HBO). But I also feel that in order to make this into a great, must-see documentary, this probably could've been condensed into an essential 2 hours, rather than a thin-running 6 hours. This is a subjective view, I realize that. Hence I'd encourage you to check it out, and draw your own conclusion.

*UPDATE 2/11/20* I saw the second episode, centering on the seemingly super security measures that were in place to keep McDonald's Monopoly game intact (even though of course it was breached for over a decade), and the episode confirms everything I saw in the 1st episode: pleasant viewing, but tighter editing would've been appropriate. I nevertheless will be watching the remaining 4 episodes to see how it all turns out.

Just watched the first of six episodes and found the style and characters very interesting. Several laughs. I do not remember the actual incident(s) but the story is so far very well told using people from both the FBI and McDonald's who were involved in the investigation as well as explaining why some people were omitted ("No." lol). The visuals, the pacing, the narrative were all very good and am looking forward to the future episodes of this documentary.

Yes, it could have been done in an hour,,, But don't you love the interviews, the suspense, the old videos?? I do. I'm loving the explanations and details because honestly I was too young to even pay attention at that moment about all the buzz. An increible story, for sure!

Interesting story but it could've been told in half the time. I think I'll just wait for the last episode.