Forensic Files

I like many other television viewers have grown very tired of the decades old late night choices of TV talk show hosts and/or reality TV series. I am so grateful for HLN to have made the wise decision to run on almost a daily basis several episodes back to back of Forensic Files episodes. Using my PVR I pre-record them and then tend to watch them binging until I have exhausted the pre-recorded episodes.

Each 30 minute episode provides the summary details of an unsolved crime which may be a murder, sexual assault, missing person(s), or blue collar crime. Each crime story line is narrated and we receive background information on the victim(s), and then methodically the investigation process is explained that results in an arrest of the suspect(s), which sometimes follows details of the actaul trial and subsequent conviction, or in some cases a prior convicted felon's crime is exonerated as new forensic science and/or forensic techniques (such as the future use of DNA) comes in to the crime science laboratories.

These are all true crime episodes, and many of the actual crimes are detailed including video images of the real arrests and/or court trials of the perpertrator(s) that provide a conviction and usually a long term or life sentence.

Anyone who is a crime buff will enjoy this documentary series that stayed on the air for so many seasons. I hope they resurrect this excellent true crime series sometime in the near future.

I give this crime/drama/documentary series an excellent 9 out of 10 rating

This was at one point probably my single most watched show.. The important difference between this show and most other forensic-y shows out there is that this one is based completely on actual cases. In the same vein as A&E's "American Justice" or Discovery's "Cold Case Files", but the running time of just 30 minutes (as opposed to an hour) makes this the perfect single serving show. The shows premise is true murder cases which were solved thru forensics, but I'm not a big forensics nerd so that part of the show, while interesting, doesn't necessarily intrigue me. What I do find fascinating is the little slice of life (death?) that is each episode. It chronicles what surely is the biggest event in most of the involved peoples lives. All of episodes (with very few exceptions) took place in America within the last decade or two, so for most of us these are events which may have occurred around us, relatively recently. As others have mentioned the pacing, narration, actual footage, photos, and interviews with those involved are well done and relevant. Each case is like a little mystery, and whats great is that of course you always find out who actually perpetrated the crime. My main critique is that occasionally certain facets or details of a case which I would like a little more clarification on are overlooked.

Episode after episode, year after year, this program has been entertaining. It almost never fails. There is a reason it has been on the air for 15 years.

After watching a few episodes, I became hooked....and, yes, this is an addicting show. I found myself watching over a hundred shows (my DVR had a workout) in two months. I'm sure many others have found themselves doing the same.

Why is this show good? First, it is true crime, not some fictional story; second, it runs only a half hour. Crime shows that are an hour long often repeat stuff over and over. A half hour is perfect. Third, the cases are always interesting. They leave you shaking your head in disbelief that people actually do some of these things reported in here. Fourth, Peter Thomas is excellent as the narrator. His is a voice which never offends, or gets old.

Currently, it can be seen regularly on the HNN cable network.

I had previously written about how much I enjoyed Quincy and this show certainly reminds me of it. A great episode every week about the wonderous advances in science that allows us to put people away. It wasn't so many years ago that a lot of the perpetrators on this show would never have been convicted. Each episode is crisp and compact and the guy who narrates it has the best storyteller voice that I have ever heard. The only thing is that this show makes you realize that there are some pretty sick people in the world who do terrible things. One episode was about a woman named Peggy Carr whose soda was poisoned by her nieghbor. He gave her a poison that destroys the central nervous system and is one of the few of its kind for which there is no effective antidote. She died the most painful death you can possibly imagine and her whole family became sick as well.

This show tells true crime stories of how the use of forensic evidence, from the identification of fingerprints to examining hair, and from tracking barcodes to tracking phone records, can lead to the location and capture of suspects. Each half-hour episodes start off with a mystery of an unsolved crime - intriguing and suspenseful. It then leads to a thrilling hunt of the criminal and the forensic attempts at tying the evidence to a suspect.

Peter Thomas does a great job in narrating each episode, making each story foreboding. It's sad to see the evil acts a person inflicts on another, but with forensic evidence, it comes to show that there is no perfect crime and certainly these criminals can't get away with murder.

Grade A