Why Making A Murderer has made small screen history
IHAVE never been much of a fan of period dramas. Downtown Abbey, for example, left me as cold and withering as one of the Dowager’s trademark stares. Perhaps it was my enforced dissection of the Jane Austen tome Emma for my Leaving Cert, but the whole thing fills me with dread.
Anyway if Love/Hate has taught us anything it is that we are far more anaesthetised an audience than we would care to admit. There has been plenty of murder most horrid in the soap operas, eg Red Rock’s lead up to a bloody Christmas. But I was looking for something a bit more ‘real’ to float my boat and there just didn’t seem to be much of it on the box.
Instead I chose to ignore the big budget television productions that would normally have me glued to the seat, (or more truthfully I’d be stuck in a seat my Christmas weightgain made it almost impossible to get out of) and took to Twitter to see what was setting the world on fire. A couple of programmes were making ripples but nothing compared to the tsunami caused by #makingamurderer on Netflix.
I know that not everyone has the subscription streaming site, but despite that this once-cult series has crossed into the mainstream.
Facebook, Twitter and pretty much every online platform is carrying stories, plot twists and spoilers for Making A Murderer — a ten part Wisconsin-set documentary that follows central character Steven Avery two years after new DNA evidence has exonerated him in a 1985 rape case, but not before he served 18 years in prison for the crime.
In a bid to seek justice of his own Avery launched a $36million lawsuit which had the power to expose suspected corruption in local law enforcement. But just weeks before his case was due to be heard Avery found himself the primary suspect in a new case: the murder of a young photographer named Teresa Halbach. That is about as much detail as I can go into without crossing into spoiler country.
WHAT I can tell you is this is really the first time that social media and Netflix have amalgamated to produce the perfect cult series. Thanks to the empty space that exists between Christmas and New Year Netflix became the obvious home for those looking for something meaty to delve into once the turkey was gobbled up.
The fact that the online network had the documentary series for more than a year before offering it to viewers suggests that bosses didn’t realise exactly what they were sitting on. When they finally released all ten episodes online just before the festive period began, even they must have been shocked at the buzz that has made this the most talked-about online series since House of Cards.
What we have now are people who’re working together in offices engaging in staggered conversations. The episode you are on determines the level of information you have about the case and how deeply you are immersed in various conspiracy theories.
I found myself lying awake in bed at night mulling over various conspiracy theories — only to find little or no resolution online.
And here is the thing; you will garner little or no pleasure from this series. It is uncomfortable voyeurism at its best, or worst. You will watch uncomfortable interviews with police and their suspects.
The access the producers have to the events and first-hand video and audio evidence over the ten years the story runs is unprecedented. Making A Murderer allows you to engage in a sort of social experiment that is half-Cluedo, half-Crimeline.
For those of you who have never heard of this series or indeed Netflix, I urge you to go online and take advantage of your free month’s trial which is available now.
That’s because by the time dry January ends and the island of Ireland is prepared to put its nose outside the front door it will be too late. It will be impossible to avoid the gory details, plots, sub-plots and fantastically outrageous conspiracy theories that surround the life and many trials of Steven Avery.
The truth — or lack of it — will be out by then.
Every pup, deli, dog walker and divil will be broadcasting their own conclusion and opinions on the show which will ultimately ruin the experience for you, leaving you as empty as the person who unwittingly overheard that Bruce Willis was actually dead all along in The Sixth Sense… sorry.