The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann

I was very interested through the first couple of episodes, I knew of this case but had forgotten many details. After the basics are established there's a mountain of speculation, which is often repeated in multiples, and comes from the press, the police, and any number of interviewees with an opinion.

They use a lot of clips from old news and talk show broadcasts from early on in the case, which didn't offer much then and still don't. The press, and interviews with members of it, are heavily featured while also clearly showing how awful they behaved. It spends far too much time on the Portuguese police. They lost any credibility on day one and that keeps getting massively worse thereafter.. The police investigation was laughable, but that doesn't stop the audience from hearing from them. All of this repetition eventually starts feeling like filler and the film unnecessarily long .

The series wraps up mostly focusing on the hired investigators which to me at least was the most interesting part of the film although not offering much of anything in terms of new leads, suspects, or even a direction to follow from here.

Interesting story. Glad to become more familiar with the history. Certainly no need to drag it over 8 episodes. Very slow and repetitive at times.

I watched all 8 episodes. If you have a strong interest in the case, then you are more than likely going to watch it regardless. Typical Netflix documentary. Slick titles, quite nicely shot, albeit a lot of repetitive scenes and drone footage of the beach and town.

However, I'm afraid to say that you are not going to learn a lot from it, if you have already followed the story from the outset.

A fairly good watch though, if it's a week before payday and you're skint and you have absolutely nothing else to do.

1. UK media are hacktivitsts masquerading as journalists.

They're so easily whipped into a frenzy by the slightest (unsubstantiated, I might add) shift in the wind, and will run wildly with accusations and innuendo without so much as an ounce of research.

It's no wonder the US media has become such a spectacle after seeing so much of this nonsense for so long.

The moronic female media member talking about how even SHE would know to secure the scene as a crime scene immediately just proves how out of their depth these supposed professionals are; how could you possibly know it's a crime scene when the little girl could have just wandered into the resort on her own? They searched the villa first, which is what I'd expect a family to do, with all hands on deck.

2. Portuguese authorities are every bit as inept as the media they used for their own benefit. These complete morons have zero idea how to conduct a proper/thorough investigation, much less work with media as a tool.

The moment the idiot compares himself to the FBI, I knew how completely incapable they were to solve this case, much less stating that releasing the stripe in Madeleine's eye would put her in danger? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

They arrived far too late, bungled the investigation as much as possible, and when they knew how utterly out of their depth they were, refused to get out of their own way and ask for help from far superior agencies.

3. Dogs as investigators is PROVEN junk science- much like handwriting analysis, analyzing reactions as proving guilt/innocence, etc.

Far too many people have been tossed in the trash heap based on these and other methods and later proven innocent to ever take this supposed evidence as anything but junk ever again.

Dogs simply want to please their trainers/owners and will react whichever way they feel will get them the best results. Without PROPER certification on the actual abilities of a dog/animal, there should never be another animal allowed to investigate a crime. You might as well be using a psychic.

This doc series does a solid job of exploiting all of these aspects, and shining a light on the ineptitude of all involved here.

I understand the McCanns simply wanted their daughter found, but letting Gerry speak at all was a mistake of immeasurable proportions, much less going to dinner while allowing your unsupervised children to sleep in another area of an unfamiliar resort.

I keep going back to this last bit- how do you avoid a tragedy? In most cases, common sense.

No, you absolutely cannot stop someone hell bent on making you a victim 24/7, but, as my mother always said "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." The sheer fact that these seemingly intelligent people (most of their group were doctors) felt perfectly justified in leaving eight sleeping toddlers/small children asleep outside of the watchful eye of at least one capable adult still boggles the mind.

In what world does this seem remotely rational? If you can't get to your child within 1 minute of a cry/scream/waking/etc., you're too far. Coupled with being in a country they're unfamiliar with, at a resort you have zero clue of the intentions of all employees, in the dark, at a place that OFFERED childcare services, just so you could have a meal and drink yourself silly with your doctor buddies?

For sobbing out loud, they had a GRANDMOTHER along, why wasn't she supervising the children in a single room? I don't care how 'tired/exhausted' the kids were, or how much of an inconvenience it would have been to have to be bothered with picking up your child(ren) and carry then back to your room- as a parent, your first responsibility ALWAYS lies with your child. Period.

This absolute dumpster fire was completely avoidable, and I'm very sorry they're still awaiting the return of their daughter. If nothing else ever comes of this tragedy, I sincerely hope it is a cautionary tale of how not to behave on vacation.

I was a hard core staunch believer that the McCanns had accidentally killed their daughter and covered it up. I had read the book, The Truth of the Lie, and I read case files found on the internet. I also watched lots of YouTube documentaries on how to tell when people are lying and how Gerry McCann was a great example of a liar, which compounded my opinion. I was convinced. They did it!

However now, after watching this Netflix documentary I'm not so sure. Other reviews are critizing this saying there's nothing new being said but that's simply not true. There are episodes that go into what the private dectectives found and uncovered that I would suspect most people didn't know about, etc.

So yes there will be new information you'll learn. Will it be a lot? Probably doubtful as it's been such a high profile case for over a decade, however the information I found interesting was enough to make me question my personal opinions.

Is there a conclusion? Of course not. We all know that. So people complaining about that aspect need to get real!

I do agree however that this could have been a much shorter documentary. They definitely dragged it out way too long. But if you're interested in the case then you'll watch it.