Murder Comes to Town

This is a good crime docudrama, but it's hard to tune out the narrator when you have to listen to him. The series has had more than one narrator, but the one I'm referring to is Joe Alaskey. He doesn't get that the "H," when it comes after "W," is silent.

So all throughout the show you will constantly hear "H'what," "H'where," "H'why" etc., though strangely, he doesn't do this with "who" or "whoever."

And he's very obvious about transposing the "W" with the "H." I don't understand why the director allows this. It truly is annoying and sounds unprofessional. I hope Joe Alaskey reads this. The "H" when it comes after "W" is SILENT!

Alaskey gets so carried away with this gimmick that sometimes he actually says "Ha-where," "Ha-while," "Ha-whenever," etc. Just stop this!

With what is approaching a glut of true crime shows it pays to be different. Different in focusing on small town crimes that other shows have passed by is a start. The other difference is in the telling, particularly the narration. Sounding very much like the late Paul Winfield the narrator adds a heaviness matching the horrific crimes. It may, or may not, be one's cup of tea as such. It mostly works to make the dark atmosphere however. What works the most is the way we our introduced to the persons of interest keeping one wondering into the final act without falsely creating "red herrings". The reenactments using actors is a mixed bag, but the stories are sadly compelling using some of the victims friends and family to add a element of real unease and loss.

The stories are interesting, but the acting is terrible.

Granted, the actors are given some pretty cheesy dialogue to work with, so they're probably doing their best. It's like a bunch of 5th graders wrote a play. It takes away from the story, unfortunately, and can make it unbearable at times.

Other than the ridiculous acting, the show covers a lot of ground. I do think it's hilarious when they talk like a town is in the middle of nowhere, even though it's maybe 15 minutes from a major city. I understand it's for dramatic effect, so I give that a pass. I do enjoy learning a bit about small towns I haven't heard of before.

I liked this for the most part. The cases are interesting and the vast majority of them were new to me.

The re-enactment's can be a little cheezie, but aren't they always? They mostly didn't bother me, and don't dominate the show. Those are offset by interviews with people who were there at the time; primarily family members of the victims, and of course, the law enforcement who worked on the cases.

A lot of reviewers seem to have a problem with the narrator. I didn't. His voice seems to fit the subject matter, and he sounds similar to the original City Confidential narrator, Paul Winfield. I've heard much worse.

For myself, these shows are all about the cases and how they were solved, and this series brings that. Overall, I think it's a solid who-done-it? Most of the cases are quite intriguing with plenty of twists to keep you guessing till the end.

3 episodes in, they make the same error .... "September, 22 1993" for example. The comma is in the wrong place. How do they make such a ridiculous mistake? How many editors do they NOT have?