Obsession: Dark Desires

Generally speaking, the reenacters should be the ones who are, y'know, acting, but here, some of the actual victims relaying their stories also feel scripted, like they're being coached on what to say the entire time for dramatic effect. During a few episodes, the dramatic timing reached a point where I found myself researching, to triple-check that the cases were real.

That's not a slight on the victims, of course, and there were a couple of stories from the first season that ripped my guts out. But, most of the time, I couldn't shake the feeling that someone was putting words in their mouths, which outright contradicts the show's mission statement.

Add to that the (albeut predictably) unrealistic reenactments and a palpable lack of even anecdotal forensics... It's simply hard to feel the truth in Discovery's latest awkward attempt at true crime.

The format is a common one, we have the victim retelling events that happened to them while actors act out the story.. The stories are very, very repetitive and as a woman , very disturbing but interesting, in particular how those around the victims are powerless to stop what's going on in most cases.

The one thing that is beyond annoying are the dodgy American accents from the British cast, why this was done like this is beyond me but it was so distracting, especially the southern accents which verged on the comical.

Look, I think the show is great, and it's amazing to hear these survivors tell their own stories. That takes guts. Seriously, though - where are they interviewing these poor people? In a run-down, moldy, broken down building that looks worse than a third world prison? Please, host these survivors in a nicer location!

Interesting concept initially but very drawn out. A story that should take twenty minutes to tell is over that twice that due to lots of repetition. Additionally, each of the episodes pretty much tracks the same as the others. It gets old pretty quickly.

I am an avid watcher of the Investigation Discovery Channel, so when I heard about this series I thought it would be interesting. I saw the series premiere last night and it was much better that I expected; a show I'll be watching every week. Instead of using a professional narrator or journalist, the victim narrates their own story. Some narrators on these shows overdramatize the story or have annoying voices, which is a dealbreaker for me. With a different person narrating each time, that issue is eliminated, and it will make the show less predictable week after week. I hope they don't change this format. Secondly, this program is about stalking rather than the more frequent murder shows on ID, and it's great seeing the victims triumph over their stalkers and receive justice without tragedy befalling them.