Truth Be Told

This is an interesting take on a current phenomenon, the crime podcast. Poppy Parnell (Academy Award Winner Octavia Spencer) is an investigative crime reporter turned podcaster. So the premise of the series is untangling a mystery per season. The cast and performances are solid. The tone and music are evocative. My biggest problem was with how the series is held hostage to its premise. Because each episode contains portions of a podcast, the pace is dampened by heavy handed moralizations and narrative. The first season's mystery was compelling enough to compensate for it (I consistently rated those episodes 8/great) but, despite the addition of Kate Hudson to the second season, the podcast narrative ground the series to a slow crawl. Overall, I give this series only a 7 (okay) out of 10. {Mystery Drama}

It starts really big.. Scenario is initially very engaging, you want to binge it..

But after 3rd - 4th episode, it starts to introduce all the cliches that were ever produced on TV.

Also, I am not sure if law works that way. A podcast producer playing with incriminating evidence and acting as a one woman police force? People getting into prison with testimonies etc?

These facts damage the plausibility of the series. The writer of the work that the series is based on is a lawyer, I can understand playing with itsy bitsy legal details for the sake of story telling but all in all, the method damages the quality.

I really liked season 1 and season 2 of Truth Be Told. I thought season 2 was better than 1. Season 3 has me feeling like "I'm good!". The premise of this show is a good one. Poppy Scoville is a true crime podcaster. Some of the episodes leave me scratching my head like why would the police give her info like that. I liken her to a modern day version of Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She wrote. The busy body who gets all the scoops and figures things out before the cops do. Season 3 is dragging on and is holding no interest for me. I think I have 1 episode to go. The writing has to get better if I'm going to watch again.

Season 1 is decent enough. Season 2 goes off the rails. Octavia Spencer and Kate Hudson have zero chemistry and the story sucks.

... in order to see where it goes. But it's difficult. Poppy is extremely unlikeable and I'm not a great fan of Octavia's acting here. I also find her relationships with the two men (husband and ex) very mismatched - I cant see either of them being in a relationship with her to be honest. Aaron Paul is great but he isn't seen as often as needed to hold this cast up. The Lanie/Josie characters are a bit of a caricature and over-acted. I'm hoping they will pull something out for the last few episodes that surprises us and redeems the series.