Fatal Vows

I watch murder shows nightly. Otherwise I cannot appreciate life. Fatal Vows is almost not serious, yet it is serious and every episode is re-watcheable. This is because of Forensic Psychologist Brian Russell, and Psychotherapist Stacy Kaiser - who provide perspectives from each gender, and can simplify relationship behaviour while a movie projector flashes behind them. They even predict the future for like, no reason. So, even if you've seen the actors play out the story before, hearing Brian and Stacey give their input again, just gets better over time. Eventually, I found Brian to be hilarious and Stacey to be an advocate for males. Both Brian and Stacey have terrible wardrobe people, and on the rare and delightful occasion: they will disagree with each other. The music is soap opera, along with the sultry narration. This show is genuis and better than other shows in it's genre.

While this true crime series offers some interesting stories and has good narration the psychoanalysis by Brian Russell and Stacey Kaiser sabotage the show. Their pseudo-intellectual comments serve absolutely no purpose to the stories. Russell's expression and weird lips are a distraction.

Many of these stories have been told on great shows like Forensic Files, and others, using actual people from the crime investigations who have actual expertise, unlike these two knuckleheads sitting in chairs blabbing resulting in nothing but eye rolls from viewers. Avoid this and look elsewhere, I repeat; Avoid this and look elsewhere 👎🏼

The two know it all egghead psychologists giving common sense advice is hilarious. At first it was annoying, now I find it as pure comedy.

This show is very superficial and good for a mindless true crime watch. The re-enactments are generally pretty terrible, often amusing. The stories are interesting and not ones I've heard of before.

The "psychologists" are shocking though. They tend to provide pointless, inane commentary with no psychological science underpinning what they're saying. The amount of victim blaming done by the psychs, narrator, and general framing of the show is horrific. DV murder is not a "crime of passion" or result of, "losing it". A dangerous angle to take.

Will this show impact your life? No. Will you get angry on behalf of the victims? Yes. Will you get a realistic overview of the experiences of these people - somewhat - the level of victim blaming and lack of support offered is a true represent ation of what it's like for the victim-survivors in the real world.

Between the overly emotive narration and the terrible reenactments this show is very much toward the bottom of the True Crime barrel. The so-called professional analysts' commentary adds almost nothing to the story, so it comes across more as what it actually is-- padding to drag out the show to 42-43 minutes. If you're a huge fan of true crime shows and have nothing else to watch you might find it an acceptable time-waster, but there are many better choices in the genre.