Murder Comes to Town

This is a good crime docudrama, but it's hard to tune out the narrator when you have to listen to him. The series has had more than one narrator, but the one I'm referring to is Joe Alaskey. He doesn't get that the "H," when it comes after "W," is silent.

So all throughout the show you will constantly hear "H'what," "H'where," "H'why" etc., though strangely, he doesn't do this with "who" or "whoever."

And he's very obvious about transposing the "W" with the "H." I don't understand why the director allows this. It truly is annoying and sounds unprofessional. I hope Joe Alaskey reads this. The "H" when it comes after "W" is SILENT!

Alaskey gets so carried away with this gimmick that sometimes he actually says "Ha-where," "Ha-while," "Ha-whenever," etc. Just stop this!

3 episodes in, they make the same error .... "September, 22 1993" for example. The comma is in the wrong place. How do they make such a ridiculous mistake? How many editors do they NOT have?

With what is approaching a glut of true crime shows it pays to be different. Different in focusing on small town crimes that other shows have passed by is a start. The other difference is in the telling, particularly the narration. Sounding very much like the late Paul Winfield the narrator adds a heaviness matching the horrific crimes. It may, or may not, be one's cup of tea as such. It mostly works to make the dark atmosphere however. What works the most is the way we our introduced to the persons of interest keeping one wondering into the final act without falsely creating "red herrings". The reenactments using actors is a mixed bag, but the stories are sadly compelling using some of the victims friends and family to add a element of real unease and loss.

This is a well produced show (I personally think the re-enactments are fine) but it falls short for two reasons: neglecting the evidence and the narrator.

For example, in the last episode I watched, S3 E9, a woman is found raped and stabbed to death in her home. They point out that a strange stain is found on her shirt and they show them in the reenactment meticulously cutting it out of her shirt and bagging it. Fast forward to the end of the show, they find the culprit and he actually eventually confesses, but they NEVER addressed the stain! In an earlier episode where someone was shot to death, they never once talked about the murder weapon other than it being a rifle. Was it found, etc? Instead of spending more time on the evidence and forensics, they focus more on interviewing people saying things like "I never thought this could happen in OUR little town!".

And, the narration is just terrible. The writing and the narrator's voice is infuriatingly over the top melodramatic. It's insulting to the audience.

The format of the show is excellent. But I watch a lot of true crime shows and know how important narration is. The narrator of this show is so annoying I skipped all 20 episodes he narrated. He sounded like Vincent Price in some horror film.