Reviews

I generally wouldn't comment on sound editing, but the poor quality was very egregious and made it hard to follow the information.

The background music was much too loud throughout. Different voice tracks (for instance, some scientists' discussion and the narrator's voiceover) would be set at the same level and played simultaneously, making it virtually impossible to distinguish the sense of either one. Also, extremely annoying to people like me who often need lip movements to augment our understanding of speech, the video and audio tracks became unsynced somewhere in the middle of the documentary.

The substance of the documentary that I could gleen was excellent. I suspect I would've given it a higher score if I could have understood more of it.

I expected to like this series. I grant the cases themselves were interesting. I had never heard of Amelia Dyer before and I've been watching true crime for decades.

Martina Cole's continuous "Wemen serial killers are bizaree especially ones that are mothers!" nonsense was so continuous and so obviously (given the theme of the series) wrong that I couldn't stand it anymore. I bailed before the end of the third episode.

There's no excuse for it. By 2008, we already knew about Aileen Wuornos, Sante Kimes, Judy Buenoano, and many others. Society was over the misconception by 2008 (I know, I was there), so why was Martina Cole underscoring it, saying it several times an episode?

I am angry that an otherwise interesting series would be ruined with such spurious idiocy. Jot down the name of the killer from each episode and find a different documentary about her. Maybe the other documentary will mention the misconception only once and in a way to indicate that it is truly foolish.

(And just in case someone is operating under another likely misconception, I am female myself!)

This show is an actual police procedural, not a soap opera starring cops, like _NYPD Blue_. Very occasionally, the case will have something to do with one of the characters, but it was infrequent enough that it did not seem contrived, the way it does on most shows. And even then, it often, although not always, is implied rather than explicitly stated. It's not considered necessary to parade each and every detail of the characters' personal lives, past and present, in front of the camera.

I did take a couple points off because the look of the show diminshed in the second season. It became less film noir and more American-network-TV-ish. As an example, the lead's going blonde took away the framing of her face, making the edge fade into the background and giving her a less intense and thoughtful look, less the intuitive detective and more a fashion plate. I found it very distracting, like watching the series in a funhouse mirror.

ON EDIT: About halfway through season 2 (as Prime Video reckons it), the plots start getting histrionic and stupid. Too many of the plots link directly to the running cast's lives, and the rest are just ridiculous. It does become a soap opera about police officers at that point. From "Cold Comfort" (S02E16) on, go find another real procedural, such as _Homicide_.

So I took away another point.

So that the reader may try to correct for my biases, I am an autistic, asexual American woman in my late fifties who watches a lot of British Commonwealth TV.

The first eight episodes (two series) were brilliant. The digs were interesting, the conclusions neither sensationalized nor presented as fact with too little evidence. Alice Roberts guides the audience through it clearly and enjoyably.

But then, starting with the third series, it looks like the producers decided they didn't want to make anything so staid as perhaps the best archaeology series on English-speaking television ever. No, they wanted a talk show. Now tell me, what does that gifted young presenter need with a co-host? Is he there just to titillate the androphiles? Feh. I am one, and I couldn't get through the first episode.

When I skipped to the fourth series to see if they later got their heads back on straight, I discovered that they did change course, but not to their original format. Now they wanted to be a reality show, having the archaeologists at the digs record videos of the "moments of discovery" and send them in so that the "best" (in whose opinion? what are the criteria?) could be shown to the audience. Sure, there's a lab portion, but the videos looked so pointless and merely sensational that I couldn't bring myself to go any further.

I'm sure it's cheaper to send Professor Roberts to fewer locations, but if I wanted to watch a talk show or a reality show, I would have selected one of those to watch. I wanted to see a documentary. And after giving me episodes that I'd easily rate an 8 or a 9, they give me talk shows and reality shows, neither of which I watch because I consider them to be zeroes.

My advice is to watch the first eight episodes, and then give the third series onward a miss. Find yourself another actual documentary and watch that.