![]() The majority of these spring shows could be classified as “true crime” – some far more violent (Candy’s axe murder) than others (the theft of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s sex tape) – which seems like the natural evolution of the true crime documentary boom in the 2010s fueled by streaming platforms with money to burn and viewers to hook. See: the success in 2016 of Ryan Murphy’s The People v OJ Simpson, which arguably heralded the scripted true crime boom (and interest in re-evaluating the 90s) from the connoisseur of the glamorous, celebrity-filled riff on reality. The timing for this reality-based spring flood mostly boils down to Emmy nomination season – the prestige TV version of December’s Oscar bait – and the fact that portraying a real-life figure, particularly a famous one or a tragic one or both, is reliable awards material. Michael Mosley and Elle Fanning in The Girl From Plainville. All spring, with every new release and announcement of yet another installment in the headline-to-series pipeline, I’ve found myself asking: why more? And why do these shows, for the most part, pale in comparison to both speculative, unfettered fiction or the real thing? ![]() But they have mostly fallen flat – there is, it turns out, a high bar for overcoming the distracting, basic tension of what really happened versus what’s on screen, what the real people looked like versus what the actors are doing, and very few of these shows clear it. They’re almost all well-made, with solid, sometimes showy direction and remarkably committed performances. Without exception, these reality-based shows boast decent production budgets and an embarrassment of riches: prestige casting, extensive costumes with occasional prosthetics, moody scores, the leeway to indulge in multiple timelines over several hours. ![]() There’s not one but two mini-series on the 1980 axe murder of Betty Gore by her friend Candy Montgomery – Hulu’s Candy, which premiered this month and stars Jessica Biel as Montgomery, and an upcoming HBO series from Big Little Lies’ creator David E Kelley with Elizabeth Olsen. An incomplete list of shows released this spring that have turned headlines into scripted television: FX on Hulu’s Under the Banner of Heaven, Hulu’s The Girl from Plainville, Starz’s Gaslit, Showtime’s The First Lady, Hulu’s Pam & Tommy, HBO’s Winning Time, Peacock’s The Thing About Pam and HBO’s The Staircase. Since then, the number of shows that double as Wikipedia rabbit holes have cascaded into a full true story boom. ![]()
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