No One Saw a Thing

I found it to be thought provoking. It's not only about the murder of a town bully, this town already had blood on its hands from a town lynching in the 1930s. Their grandchildren in the 80s ended up in a situation that they band together to kill someone, the town bully. How did he end up that way? Why couldn't the police or law do anything. Then a teenage boy is murdered. Then a pregnant woman is killed and her baby abducted in 2004. With people dying off, businesses going out of business, meth houses coming in. Also a woman was beaten to death in broad daylight in her yard by her boyfriend and no one did a thing. For a town with such a tiny population, there is some hardcore violence. It's very interesting.

It's not a badly made documentary. Good use of old footage, particularly news coverage that helped place how noteworthy this murder was at the time. Interesting story....initially. However, it needed to stick to the one, as advertised, Ken Rex murder and keep their foot on the gas with it. Should have been a movie in truth because added unnecessary episodes turned it into a story much less interesting

To be fair, this series starts off okay, with the first three episodes focusing on the crime from which it draws its name. But even so, there's really no new ground broken and the content could have easily been edited down to 1.5 hours with absolutely no loss to the viewer.

Where it really falls apart is from episode 4 onward, where the producers stretch credulity by trying to tie other local crimes into what was supposedly the subject of this mini-series. It's clear the area is not affluent, with meth labs apparently very common according to many witness accounts, and yet the producers spend the last half of the series stretching the story well past the breaking point in an attempt to show that an entire town rising up to eradicate a local terrorist is somehow responsible for a host of other crimes in later years. Particularly unfortunate are a spate of overly emotional comments from an old lady "crime writer" who adds absolutely nothing to the original story.

I wish I'd stopped watching after episode 3 and, frankly, by the time episode 5 was over I wish I'd skipped the entire thing. The first three episodes might be of interest to serious fans of true crime or to those in the immediate area who are unfamiliar with the details, but honestly I'd skip this one. At ~4.5 hours total length there's very little substance for the time invested, even for this fan of true crime documentaries.

Sundance Network should keep this series up.. There are lots of true crime happenings that are stranger than fiction!! Bring it back!!

Do you believe in karma? I never have, but this amazing 6-part limited series sure gives me cause to re-evaluate my stance. Stuff like this is what makes me love documentaries, and there is no doubt in my mind that truth is stranger than fiction. Any screenwriter would have been laughed out of Hollywood proposing what happens here as a fictional motion picture. This is one of those rare "potato chip experiences" - you can't stop after just one. I stayed up WAY too late, but I couldn't wait to see what the next episode had to offer. And I'm actually going to leave it at that, because the less you know about what happens the better. Let me just say that I will truly never forget the city of Skidmore MO and its array of colorful and unconventional inhabitants. I was shocked, I was heartbroken, and I was bemused - often simultaneously. I was so close to giving this a perfect rating, but I felt it could have been edited just a bit tighter, especially the final segment. But this is one of the best programs I've seen in a while, and I'm quite tempted to start it over again right away.