Web of Lies

The show presents decent recreations of true crime and includes interviews with friends and/or family of the victims, or when possible, the victims themselves. It mostly involves people making stupid decisions that often have grave consequences. A lot of episodes also feature people with mental illnesses whose aberrant behavior is ignored, or worse, accepted, by friends and family.

There's a good amount of repeated subject matter. It seems that every third episode has someone getting into a windowless van owned by a middle-aged man posing as a 14-year old in a chat room.

Worst of all, in season 6, the show introduced a new narrator, Russell Bentley. His lisp makes me feel like I'm watching Looney Tunes being narrated by Sylvester J. Pussycat Sr. A narrator's job is to read a script and speak into a microphone. Surely they could have hired someone who can talk normally.

I'm no expert on true crime series, having just started watching them this year, but I think this is a very good one. I skipped around at first, watching episodes that looked the most interesting, but ended up watching all the episodes, with the exception of two or three. Except for Season 7, it's a well-done show, complete with a narrator, interviews, actual crime videos and reinactments. Repetition is limited to a line or two after commercial breaks, although I watched it without commercials at Discovery +.

While some of the stories are the same type of crimes, there's enough diversity in those similar stories so that you don't feel you are watching the same crime over and over again. Season 7 was the exception. They obviously were running out of stories to tell, they had no narrator, and some episodes even seemed to be titillating. That was horrible, too, since those episodes involved teenagers being stalked online by perverts. There were no less than three episodes on that topic in Season 7!

After watching this series, I could see some viewers deciding never to use online dating sites, and some watching their kids' online activities like hawks, if they ever even allowed their kids online again. The series is that effective in showing the dangers lurking on the internet. You have so many individuals who would not have been murdered if they only had not gone online, including children. You have so many individuals who would have not been victimized in some other way, if they had not gone online. People online are often not what they seem or who they claim to be.

I love this show. The acting in it is really good and makes you feel like it's the real thing. Very good stories.

If you want to blame everyone but your self this series is for you no one takes responsibility in the episodes I watched. It's always, I am a victim and yes there's evil out there but come on be a better parent and stop putting your self in bad situations and non of these would have happened.

P.S. I skipped around so you might see different episodes

This review is for the newer seasons only, as the old seasons were really good. Sadly, the show has lost its niche and what set it apart from other true crime shows.

Bring back the reenactments. The new seasons are reporting only, similar to dateline.

Bring back the narrator's. I liked the story telling aspect with a narrator and actors acting out what had happened.

Every episode should be more centered around the internet or technology and not just a thing that's mentioned for a few seconds just so it aligns with the theme of the show.

The first couple seasons were absolutely perfect. It started to teeter off in the middle, however it was still better than most true crime shows. Now? It's your run of the mill true crime. It's watchable but not as interesting.