Jill Dando: un mistero irrisolto

How many more of these two or three part murder/mystery unsolved documentaries are there going to be, when all they do is inform everything already known with no conclusion at the end (it finishes with two possible scenarios of who murdered Jill).

There is a no doubt it is well produced with interviews from colleagues, friends and family, but is ploddy at best. The 2019 1-hour BBC Documentary is superior, concise and more watchable.

As with the Suzy Lamplugh unsolved disappearance (who coincidentally disappeared from roughly the same area) the Metropolitan Police named their killer with mostly circumstantial evidence, and have wasted time and resources, while not exploring other avenues. The Barry George suspect story is so well know in the UK I'm surprised the producers devoted so much time to it.

The documentary confirms it is yet another unsolved murder embarrassment for the London Met, 24 years old.

I'm Canadian and I have been to the United Kingdom once. For the most part it was a pleasant visit, apart from one immigration officer who seemed certain that I was about to work illegally in his beautiful country, which was strange because I was only there to visit as a tourist for a literal weekend. One thing that struck me is how similar the two countries are, Canada, United Kingdom, and yet how vastly different they are. There's the same fast food restaurants and people somewhat speak the same language, but the mentality is quite different and things that are famous internationally are not necessarily the things that people in those countries care about the most. The case of Jill Dando is a good example of this. The documentary makes a comparison between her and lady Diana. In Canada knows who Lady Di was, I doubt many people would have heard about Jill Dando and her case. The documentary does a good job of explaining the basic facts of the case, and you get the feeling that it was not created merely to be some sort of venue for sordid true crime, so as a way to try and bring the case to a resolution. I am struck by the fact that this is yet another case that was widely talked about in the media and because of that attention and focus, the true killer was allowed to get away with it.

I'm not sure if the investigation itself was this bad, or the way the documentarians put together and edited this documentary makes the investigators look foolish. Were they trying to put together a lengthy series, but not having enough information, they put in every needless detail they could find? It's difficult to understand the timeline of when events happened or when certain individuals/groups became suspects or were eliminated. Then, in the middle of the second episode, we start going back into retrospective of who Jill Dando was and why she was loved. Didn't we already learn that at the beginning?

But then, when a newcomer looks into it things, there seems to be common sense used to discover connections. So is it a bad documentary, or actually a reflection on how poorly this investigation was done. They would provide details of evidence, and then make claims as to why somebody was a suspect, even though it doesn't correlate with the evidence . Nothing added up, but is it just bad footage, questioning, or editing?

Just felt frustrated watching it, not intrigued like I usually would be while watching a crime documentary...

Jill Dando was everywhere in 1990s Britain. She was charming, likeable and her death was beyond shocking.

This documentary does well to keep Jill in the story, splicing clips of her throughout the three parts. Oddly, Jill comes across the most alive person. Everyone else seems so flat. It makes for a frustrating documentary. Information is sparse, and no hard questions are being asked, especially of the police, regarding the slow pace of investigation and some big mis-steps (cctv from local buses, for one, which even the tabloid hacks figured out). Sranger still is the appearance of a random old blagger who says he knows things. Sure.

Ultimately, it makes for a well-made but empty series.

What a pointless documentary. Just a rehash of everything that was raked over at the time.

No new theories. No new leads or avenues of investigation.

Stretched out and fairly pointless. No reason to watch it at all to be honest. Not particularly well made either as it jumps around and meanders back & forth.

It was clearly a professional hit. That at least should have enabled the documentary makers to weed out the silly dross. No mention of police revisiting the case to give it a modern DNA techniques overhaul.

Next case for the doc-makers to crack - Who shot J. R.? That would be more entertaining certainly.