Shortly before this month’s release of the much-anticipated second season of NPR’s “Serial”, another true crime series debuted, this one on Netflix: “Making a Murderer,” which tells the story of a Wisconsin man who may or may not have been framed for killing a local woman.
“Murderer” had a ready-made audience in all those who obsessed over every detail in the Hae Min Lee murder case in the first season of “Serial,” which rolled out so many contradictory pieces of evidence and weirdo tangents that even its final episodes had everyone wondering, still, if convicted killer Adnan Syed was actually innocent or guilty.
And “Making a Murderer” doesn’t disappoint. What’s surprising, though, is how underwhelming, in comparison, the second season of “Serial” is, thus far.
Here are five reasons why the Netflix show is a better bet for your true-crime fix.
1. We don’t know anything about the case already.
Unless you live in Manitowoc County, Wis., it’s likely you hadn’t heard the name Steven Avery before tuning in to “Making a Murderer.” And yet once you begin to hear all the lurid details of his story, it’s hard to believe it hasn’t received any national attention: A man freed by DNA evidence after 18 years in prison for an attempted rape he didn’t commit, then arrested only two years later for a brutal murder, with the victim’s bones found in his backyard — right as his legal team was proceeding forward with a $36-million-dollar lawsuit for wrongful imprisonment.
Meanwhile, most of us have at least heard the name Bowe Bergdahl in passing, and whether or not we’ve made up our minds what we think about the soldier’s actions — deliberately abandoning his post in Afghanistan, which resulted in his being kidnapped by the Taliban — we’re not coming to the tale with fresh ears.
2. Its subject is more sympathetic.
And that’s saying something, because Steven Avery, who’d been in trouble with the law multiple times before his wrongful rape arrest, is hardly a model citizen. But in the two episodes of “Serial” we’ve heard so far [the third was just released Thursday], what largely comes across is how incredibly short-sighted, if not downright idiotic, Bergdahl was to think he could walk off his military base and NOT get kidnapped by the Taliban.
3. Its subject gives firsthand interviews.
Filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, who spent 10 years making the series, spoke to Avery in phone interviews from prison and include many excerpts from TV interviews with him during the two years he was free after his DNA exoneration. Bergdahl, so far, has only been available to “Serial” creator Sarah Koenig via taped interviews he made with a filmmaker, so everything we’re hearing is secondhand — and not in reference to any of her specific questions.
4. There’s a wealth of archival footage available.
Being able to see taped interrogations — as with Avery’s teenage nephew, who is visibly coerced into giving damning testimony — and extensive court footage, local news reports and recorded depositions of local officials accused of corruption gives “Making a Murderer” a big advantage. The first season of “Serial” was able to hold our interest via interviews with a wide variety of people in the orbit of Adnan Syed, but the second, so far, has been less than riveting with its various descriptions of where Bergdahl was taken when he was abducted.
5. It’s literally easier to hear.
As a radio producer, it must have been somewhat frustrating for Koenig that the recorded interviews between Bergdahl and the filmmaker are not clearer — they’re a little murky at times, and not helped by the fact that neither party is a very animated speaker — unlike Koenig herself, who does her best to enliven the podcast. “Making a Murderer,” meanwhile, has the quality of a well-made documentary, making sure to subtitle any conversations that might be remotely difficult for the viewer to understand. (Advantage: television.)
For her part, Koenig seems to have known a “Serial” backlash might have been coming, and it sounds like she’s OK with that. In a recent interview, she remarked that she didn’t think the second season was going to garner the kind of excitement the first one did, and that the result might be some welcome anonymity again. “I really miss the days when nobody gave a crap what I was doing . . . It’d be nice to just be like a troll in my basement again.”
Meanwhile, the “Making a Murderer” filmmakers seem prepared for the big reception their series is getting, and they have high hopes for its effect on its audience, as Demos recently said, “One of the experiences we hope will come across is what it’s like to be accused in this country, what it’s like to go through this system. The hope is that with firsthand experience, people will think differently about the criminal justice system: what is working and what is not working, and the role each one of us plays in that.”