The Truth About Jim

This was pure speculation! All the way through, with no firm conclusion. While he may have been an awful man and I am sorry for what they all went through, you are accusing a man of murder ! When you have no proof and he cannot defend himself. Don't waste your time watching its long winded and meaningless.

The interviews all seem prompted, I did have sympathy and empathy for the women, but as stated it was all speculation.

There doesn't seem to be any firm presented evidence, for anything. I was very disappointed in this documentary. I wish I read the reviews before I wasted my time watching it.

One of the worst HBO documentaries ever made.

Mostly conjecture and staged interviews where subjects are more or less fed lines and leading witnesses. The narrative constantly deviates from serial killing into family drama and how men are bad and nobody believed rumours in the 1970s, a time when hearsay dominated life. Evidence shcmevidence it seems the filmmaker is saying.

The entire first episode could be condensed into a 3 minute intro but the filmmaker is too invested in her own namesake and San Francisco trauma to stop.

Just because you can shoot a documentary doesn't make it compelling or necessary.

Far below HBO documentary standards.

Between the mother who basically called her daughter a liar in the most passive aggressive manner, who ignore countless red flags, who couldn't see what was happening right in front of her, even though he threatened to kill her more times than could be counted, and pretends everything is just fine. You're at least 70, it's blatantly apparent you haven't a lick of sense in your head, despite your years of life.

The granddaughter (Sierra) who seemingly is too completely moronic, I half expected the person she went to with her discoveries to be a psychic. She keeps claiming to not want to bother people, but doesn't bother to do a single bit of research into families of murder victims with no answers, and how desperately they cling to the hope that some day they'll finally get the answer to all the questions. She's constantly putting HER BARE HANDS all over every piece of physical evidence with no thoughts as to evidentiary integrity. She spends far too much time talking about pointless drivel that has no bearing on what this absolute abomination did. WHY DID SHE NOT IMMEDIATELY GO TO LAW ENFORCEMENT? I swear to God all she ever says is 'I'm so freaked out right now!' It's like the worst Scooby-Doo episode ever. So this entire 4-episode snoozefest was an attempt to grift off of Zodiac? STOP. IT.

The daughter who's the mom of Sierra (Shannon)- they disposed of an entire box of possible trophies of victims of Jim, because they were just tired of it all? WHAT?! So there's all these CHILDREN who died and you could hold the key to it all and just 'screw it, I think I took it to a thrift store or something!', like it's totally normal and understandable.

This so-called Zodiac 'expert' by whose account exactly? Because he wrote a book? These people seek out their victims for specific reasons-murderers don't just turn their entire MO on a dime, going from couples to children.

This entire series is so much blather that it's stunning to think it was stretched into FOUR EPISODES. It's not shocking at all that this complete snore is from Ron Howard and Brian Grazer- (what ever happened to Grazer's #MeToo claims?) these two have taken what could have been good subjects to cover and turned them into something that came straight from TMZ or National Enquirer, and spat out over-produced, tacky nonsense that works better for falling asleep than anything remotely related to engrossing television.

"Somebody's grandpa was a serial killer....." Sigh, not necessarily tho, right? Cause a serial killer isn't automatically a father - and it's assumptions and leaps like that that pepper this series with, let's say reckless allegations that most of, are pure speculation - now PLEASE understand that I'm not defending the subject of the documentary, nor disbelieving the accusers (in the cases that it's first hand recounting) but let's just say that had the filmmakers not been immediate family AND the accused being deceased, this type of film couldnt or wouldn't exist - so to me, the fact that one or more of these are purely conjecture - it causes me to see the whole through this lens of speculation - for that I think I have to give it a 3, if for no other reason than, IN FACT, it is NOT the TRUTH about Jim.

This documentary had no business being stretched into four episodes, and perhaps due to its extended nature it seems to never quite get to the point. It seems primarily to be a vanity piece for its main subject, Sierra, but fails to explore the nuance behind what is driving her "investigation." Jim was clearly a bad man, but watching the women in his life speculate about things he may or may not have done now that he is long dead feels regressive rather than empowering. It lingers on long drawn out scenes of mothers and daughters reminiscing on Jim's impact on their lives, though it didn't feel to me as the viewer like it was particularly healing for them to do so, even as the documentary attempts to manufacture a storyline of familial healing.

This documentary had ample opportunity to take an academic look at cycles of abuse among generations, the role of women as family healers & documentarians, or even could have explored the making the project itself as a coping mechanism for its subjects, but instead it takes a one dimensional view of Sierra and her family.