The Thing About Pam

This is a dark comedy, folks, especially with the Keith Morrison narration. If that's not your cup of tea, then you'll hate this show. If, like me, you watch reality crime shows and have a slightly "off" sense of humour, you'll stick with the series, as I plan to.

I've been reading about the actual case, and this movie isn't overexaggerating a thing. The authorities really were that arrogant, Pam really is that psychotic, and the people around her were really that manipulated.

Watching shows like this taught me more about the human psyche than any college psychology course. Another crazy movie was " The Good Father: The Martin MacNeill Story."

Zellweger is excellent in this playing the Machiavellian Pam up against weak-minded, incompetent, small-town law enforcement. This whole works extraordinarily well despite my prejudice against narrated stories and 'true story' drama. Judy Greer performs admirably as the closed-minded prosecutor, and effectively colludes with the police, the judge and Pam in framing the innocent husband.

My husband and I think Pam is a riot. It's a mystery, a comedy, a drama and we get to enjoy Academy Award Winner Renee Zellweger kill it in the lead. The big surprise is the fantastic Katy Mixon in the role of the victim. She is better than I've ever seen her before and deserves accolades as she keeps up with Renee line for line. This show is based on a true story. That real life event was tragic. But this show is really good. Give it a chance. It's not your usual limited series. It's nice to have unique programming. Great job, NBC!

Well done whoever cast Renee Zellweger as Pam Krupp. She is by far an unobvious choice but is absolutely excellent as the fascinatingly unlikeable- but seemingly mundane and harmless- Pam. There is a true crime book that has recently been released which is how I knew of the story (having never seen the dateline show.) It's twisty and I can see why a show would have been warranted. The creative angle here of Pam slurping her drink and the Desperate Housewives style narrative just work in bringing to story to life as a sort of disturbing caricature as opposed to a dark and miserable crime retelling. This was original and interesting, particularly as I had a vested interest in the case already.