This is a show made by the same people who do Snapped, one of the shows that set the standard for this type of show. It's about 90% reenactments with the rest interviews with some of the principals from the cases.
They do a really odd thing in this show, where the person being interviewed is in a dark studio with lights on them and is sitting next to a mirror. So you see this blurred person sitting next to them and I swear the first couple people I was wondering who the person was sitting next to them in the dark studio and what the purpose of that was. It's distracting and makes zero sense.
This, like a lot of these shows now, has cases that were solved relatively quickly but they need to draw it out to fit in an "hour" (40 minutes with commercials) but the basis is to show how bad these women who get guys to kill for them are. The cases are still relatively interesting but like a lot of these shows, they would be so much better as a half hour show (which they will never do - Snapped did one seasons of 30 minute episodes and felt it was better to drag them out over and hour - like ths show).
The police involved with these cases are all generally good speakers and are interesting. They have "friends" of victims or the killer give their opinions.
But the worst thing about this show is the reenactments. They always get people who are way way better looking the real people. It's almost insulting. One lady marries some older nerdy guy who's never been with a woman. The actress is super hot. They show the real lady and you're wondering who thinks she's "hot" like they keep talking about. Worse are the "in court" shots where the actress is dressed for a club and looks really good - then they show the real lady - who is super overweight and looks like she's been selling enchiladas in the Home Depot parking lot. Why exaggerate this? Makes this seem like a super low budget made for TV movie that makes up stuff that never happened.
One case has a guy playing a wrestler and the actor's face really is identical the real guy. But he's fat. Not a wrestler in any way. He couldn't' be a heavyweight because he's too short. But he got the part because of his face. But the scene where he's "going for a run" gets a big laugh. That guy hasn't "run" a day in his life. Better to get someone who looks like they wrestled in high school, not a guy whose face looks like the real guy but is fat.
Almost every instance the actor is better looking. They have the actress being interrogated the police, then cut to video of the real person and she looks about 80 pounds heavier and was attractive as the actress playing her maybe back in high school 30 years earlier. Again, it's insulting. Just get people who look like the real people. Nothing wrong with non-attractive actors playing non-attractive people.
They "reenact" things that happened, like a woman bringing in the sabre her boyfriend used to slash up a guy - but the reenactment is her entering a door way with her arms stretched out, holding the saber and two cops standing a couple feet away just watching her. It looks like a high school play. If you can't reenact what happened with some degree of reality, don't try.
Every episode has actress playing the woman the episode is about in court, smirking, like she thinks she's above her case and will get off easily. This is to make you dislike her more, as if you didn't already. Again, super unethical. They do stuff like this to create emotion when it's not necessary - it's just wrong.
The writing is terrible in a lot of places, like it was written by a 7th grader. A detective says "the judge told us we had 24 hours to get evidence on Adrianna or she'd go free." Then 2 seconds later, the narrator says "so they had 24 hours to find evidence on her or Adrianna would go free." Ug, painful.
One of the absolute dumbest traits of this show is the little supers - little labels they put on things for us dumb people whose eyes apparently don't see well. Like there's a stack of business cards, then the little red label appears with an arrow pointing to the cards that reads "business cards." Or there's a trail of blood and the label appears and reads "trail of blood." Good thing they had that, I thought it was a trail of milk. Me is dumb.
Overall the cases are interesting and the real people are generally good. They need to dump that mirror - I'm still unclear on what that does. And stop getting actors who are ten times better looking than the real people. It's dishonest. The general public can handle fat people or average looking folks playing the real people. Also get better writers. This is just another show I watch while on the treadmill, I don't know if I could sit though a whole episode otherwise.
